


Sordid Little Details

by pissedoffeskimo



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Derogatory Language, First Time, Fluff, M/M, Shameless Smut, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-22
Updated: 2015-04-23
Packaged: 2018-03-25 07:22:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 59,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3801733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pissedoffeskimo/pseuds/pissedoffeskimo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Transferring to an all-boys school was supposed to be an exciting adventure, especially since William had only just managed to come to terms with the fact he was gay.  It was supposed to be a veritable playground - a sea of young men for him to explore his sexuality with.  Unfortunately, despite having literally hundreds of attractive young men to potentially choose from, he’s managed to develop a crush on his English Professor.  Who hates him.  Why can’t things ever work out the way he wants them to?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As promised, I present you with a much lighter original read. It has horny young men, a little angst, and quite a bit of something bordering on fluff. I keep going back and forth on how much to say here, because if you’ve noticed the thing I’m thinking about mentioning, then you may already know the end. If you haven’t notice, I don’t want to ruin it. So, I will simply say this: I promise that none of the central characters are killed, raped, or otherwise mutilated. No one turns out to be a bad person doing bad things. No one rips anyone’s heart out and stomps on it until it’s a puddle of hate and despair. This is, above anything else, a love story.
> 
> Also, please excuse Emerson's language. He's a prat, but not a bad guy in the end.
> 
>   
>    
> 
> 
> (the actors here are not accurate representations of the characters, but a close enough proximity) 

William had never been fond of his name. He’d been born sixteen years ago under the name William Henry Bryce, but he’d gone by Willy and then Will and even Henry for a time before settling on William. In the end, it wasn’t his first name that bothered him, but his last, and upon further introspection it was the fact that he shared that name with his father more than the name itself.

His earliest memories were of his father yelling at him, which, overall, didn’t bother him so much.   After all, he didn’t know that a father wasn’t supposed to constantly yell at his child. When he was seven, however, he made the mistake of yelling back. He had been playing with a boy who lived across the road and he’d been shoved into the mud, getting his clothing dirty. His father began yelling at him and after several minutes he’d screamed that it wasn’t his fault that Fred had decided to push him and that he wasn’t sure why his father was mad because they were his cruddy clothes, anyway.

Then his father had hit him. He’d hit him so hard his lip split and it threw him to the floor. He’d stared down at William for several seconds before walking off and had ignored him ever since. In fact, unless his mother told him to pay attention or to talk to William, he’d pretended he didn’t exist, which was fine with William because as far as he was concerned, his father didn’t exist either.

When William was ten he was very pleased to learn that he would be attending boarding school as this meant he only had to deal with his so-called father a few months out of the year. He was one of the few children he knew who genuinely looked forward to the end of summer.

His father was born an American and like many Americans, he was constantly reading American news. He liked in particular to complain about it. One of his most recent rants was concerning the belief that Americans have about violence on television desensitizing the youth, which he thought was utter rubbish and if William weren’t so busy ignoring him the few months he spent in the man’s presence, he would have pointed out that there was a very good case for desensitization in his own household.

William had been yelled at and lectured so often as a small child that by the time he went to school, it had absolutely no affect on him. The headmaster spent hours wagging his finger for childish pranks, trying to pretend he was disappointed when William was caught cheating, and outright losing his temper when William had snuck out of bed one night and was caught sneaking back into the school the next morning. All of which was an incredibly useless waste of time.

However, despite that, Headmaster Griggs was a very patient man. So patient, in fact, that he didn’t kick William out until he was seventeen. If it’d been William, dealing with a child like himself, he would have thrown him out on his arse and let him hitchhike home the first time he rigged the boy’s toilets to spray water up into the faces of whoever flushed them – and that had only been one of many yearly traditions William held to in his six years at Knox.

No, Headmaster Griggs may never have found a way of disciplining him that worked, but he did put up with quite a lot. That’s why William couldn’t be very mad at him for having finally given up when he’d been found copulating with a girl in a disused teacher’s lounge.

Well, he’d called it copulating, William had called it fingering, but either way it landed him back home faster than he could blink. From there it was only three days and one phone call before he was back on a train, this time heading toward Saint Christoff’s Catholic Boarding School for Boys, which he found incredibly ironic, so much so that he’d laughed the entire way there and had trouble not doing so again while he sat in the headmaster’s office listening to him make a speech on ungodly acts.

He probably shouldn’t have found it so funny. Most boys his age would be horrified at being sent to an all boys’ school, but the thing was, after his short interlude with Tanya Iving, he’d firmly decided that girls didn’t interest him at all. In fact, that entire make out session had been on her suggestion.

‘Have you ever been with a girl?’

‘No.’

‘Well, really, William, how do you know you’re gay if you haven’t been with a member of the opposite sex?’

‘I just do.’

‘Shouldn’t you ought to try it at least once?’

‘Is that your way of trying to get me to snog you?’

‘I’ve been working on it for months and if you really are gay I suppose this is my last chance, isn’t it?’

Tanya was one year William’s senior and they’d been friends since he’d started school. He would have been more than that if she’d had her way. So, he took her up on the offer because put simply, she was right. How did he know if he didn’t at least try? Unfortunately, while he’d been doing his best to make the experience as pleasurable for her as possible, he hadn’t so much as felt a stir, therefore proving that he was undeniable gay.

The school he’d been attending was rather progressive, actually, and he would have enjoyed exploring his options there, but in the end he thought it was a bit of a dream come true. An all boys school - hundreds of students and not a pair of tits in sight. His own personal playground.

He was going to be in heaven.

 

 

*****

 

 

The headmaster was also a priest, which was incredibly annoying as William had never been fond of priests. He preferred to be called Father Mathis, and had assigned him a five page essay on why what he’d done was wrong and why he was never going to do it again until he was properly married.

The essay itself didn’t bother him really; it was the fact that he wanted it written right then. Apparently, since he’d arrived midday on a Sunday afternoon there was nothing better for William to do than sit in a dark office writing a five page paper that could have been summarized into one straight forward, if compound, sentence: ‘It was wrong to mess around with a girl because I am gay and it will never happen again because girls don’t interest me anymore, but a dorm room full of boys does.’

But, over all, he hadn’t thought that would impress Father Mathis, so he wrote a paper on the evils of premarital sex that included the dangers of ‘messing around’ with girls whom you weren’t in a committed, long term relationship with – venereal diseases, pregnancy, William wisely left out the part about being expected to call the next morning.

After he’d finished, Father Mathis read it and made him discuss whether he’d written it to please him or whether William really meant it. Eventually, he must have said, “I do not intend to sneak out in search of women so I can have sex,” with enough sincerity for him because Father Mathis nodded and called for a professor to come and escort him to the sixth year dorms.

Professor Kingsley wasn’t much better than Father Mathis. He had long dark hair, pulled back, he was pale with little wrinkles at the corners of his hazel eyes - which struck William as odd because it hadn’t appeared that he did a great deal of smiling – he was tall and it was hard to tell with jacket and trousers, but he seemed to straddle the line of lanky. He also had a scowl on his face that didn’t relent the entire tour.

The building was five stories tall. The ground floor made up the teacher’s quarters, the dining hall, and the kitchens, the second and third floors were classrooms, and the fourth and fifth floors were dorms. The dorm rooms had been set high in the building, presumably to try and dissuade students from sneaking out; William wasn’t all that sure it worked. He knew it wouldn’t have stopped him, but then he wasn’t looking to get out.

The headmaster’s office had been on the first floor, so they’d had to trudge up several flights of stairs to get to the sixth year dorms, which were on the top most floor. Where William’s old school had been progressive, co-ed, the rooms small, the building new, and the facilities well maintained, this school was religious, all boys, the dorm rooms were twenty beds per, separated by thin, egg white curtains, the building was drab, and the facilities... well, there were only two or three he would have even considered sitting down in. Boys aside, by the end of the tour, he wasn’t looking forward to living there for a year and a half.

When they entered the dorm room he would be sharing, William wasn’t surprised to find it entirely empty. There was a little village less than a mile walk from the school and the students were permitted to visit it on weekends unless they had detentions to serve. It appeared that none of the sixth years had received detention that week.

Professor Kingsley walked him stoically through the rows of beds until he came to one that had the sheets pulled back and a trunk that he recognized as his own sitting in front of it. Kingsley pointed to the bed and William looked at him blankly. He’d figured out that it was his, but he still hadn’t really been sure what he was expected to do about it.

After several moments of silence, Kingsley spoke, “This is the dorm you’ll be staying in - sixth year dorm room two. That is your bed. It’s to be made every morning. On Saturdays the sheets are stripped and clean ones are left for you to put on. Curtains are only to be drawn in the evening. Questions?”

William shook his head, momentarily stunned. That voice was positively sinful. It was deep and rumbling and... more than a little intimidating to tell the truth, but he couldn’t have cared less about that. He was too busy wondered if Kingsley was one of his professors. Would he get to listen to him talk like that every day? Of course, he wasn’t William type – not to say he was unattractive, William simply preferred the athletic bodies of teenage boys like himself and Kingsley was easily in the mid to late thirties – but there had always been the pleasing option of closing his eyes and just listening.

Professor Kingsley quirked an eyebrow at William’s silence, but nodded and started to leave, stopping only a moment to tell him that dinner would be promptly at seven thirty before he strode out the door with the kind of confidence that comes only for someone who knows he is feared by nearly every person he comes in contact with. William let himself take a moment to consider what class he taught. Arithmetic, perhaps? He’d never got on with arithmetic and anyone who associates themselves with it; which included a chubby little third year that had tutored him in his last school. That little smart arse scared the shite out of him. He thought he’d never pass.

Sitting on the bed, William looked around the room bleakly. The walls were white and sterile, the plastic tiles were yellowed and pealing on the edges. The beds were not entirely uncomfortable - the mattress was thinner than he would have liked, but it wasn’t lumpy and the blanket and the sheets were soft and full. It could have been cozy if it weren’t for the fact that the only privacy he was likely to get was if he snuck into the bathroom after lights out. Then again, there were over a hundred boys in the school, all starved for privacy, and it was very possible that the bathrooms, even after lights out, were not the place to get it.

As he lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling, the sound of shouting and laughter came rolling down the hall outside the door.

“Lay off, Perkins, or I’ll tell the headmaster about your little adventure.”

“Don’t be a prat, Wallace.”

“Don’t mind him, Perkins. He’s just upset because the little faggot couldn’t find himself a boyfriend to cuddle up with.”

“I am not a faggot!”

“Get a girlfriend, then and...”

They stopped as they came into the room and saw William sitting on the bed, staring at the door with mixed apprehension. Wallace had to be the shortest of them; he was pale and chubby, and not at all the kind of boy that one would find attractive. Another of the three was a tall, slightly muscular boy with the build of a jock and he gathered that he was Perkins, because the other had been the one who’d stopped talking when they walked in. He had blond hair, dark hazel eyes and was shorter than Perkins, but taller than Wallace, lean in build, with toned muscles in his arms and legs, and a tan that said he played some sort of sport. He looked William up and down, sizing him up before he spoke. “Who’re you, then?”

William stood and offered him hand, which the boy took without hesitation. “William Bryce. I just transferred in.”

“From where?”

“Knox, it’s a co-ed academy up North.”

Perkins raised an eyebrow. “Co-ed?”

The nameless boy scowled slightly. “You a delinquent? Get transferred for anything worth mentioning?”

William took a moment to reflect on his situation before answering. Despite his earlier enthusiasm it now occurred to him that perhaps an all boys boarding school was not the best place to pick up other boys. It wasn’t that he thought it would be impossible, or that he imagined there weren’t at least some among the masses that shared his preferences, but it was quite possible that many more were like these boys and he was more likely than not to be ostracized or attacked for admitting the fact.

He bit the inside of his cheek, something William was prone to do when thinking. He’d never really considered that before. Knox had been a nurturing environment for all types. It wasn’t as though everyone went around shouting their sexual preferences to the rafters, but it hadn’t been anything to be ashamed of, or secretive about. But, then, Knox hadn’t been a repressed Catholic school run by a priest.

“I... I got caught making out with a girl in the teacher’s lounge.” Perkins eyes widened slightly, “I think it was the location that put them off more than the act itself, really.”

The blond boy suppressed a smile, “I’m Peter Emerson. We’re about to head down to the field and have a game of football before dinner. Care to join?”

Nodding, William followed them down the hall, feeling more depressed about his situation now then he had been when he was laying on the floor of my father’s study watching the blood from his lip stain the carpet. He had pigeon holed himself as a stereotypical male in order to fit in with the other adolescent boys. Sure it was justified. No one wanted to share a dorm with people they were afraid would beat them up, but he had to wonder which was worse, being afraid or being ashamed, because at that moment he was very much ashamed of himself.

Heaven, indeed.


	2. Chapter 2

_Dear Tom,_

_I’m sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye before I left._ _As I’m sure  
you’ve heard, the Headmaster caught _ _me with Tanya and I  
was sent home before anyone _ _came back from lunch. Knowing  
her, she probably _ _gave you a first-hand account._

_Father decided, in all his wisdom, to send me to_ _St. Christoff’s  
Catholic Boarding School for Boys. So, __here I am, sitting on a  
bed in a room I share with __thirteen other boys. The school’s  
different and not __in a good way. I can’t imagine spending  
another __year and a half here, but then I don’t expect I have_  
_a choice._

 _The food so far has been passable, but their focus_ _isn’t on  
fine cuisine. They seem to specialize in __keeping a close eye  
on the students - my dorm room __is on the fifth floor. I’m  
going to try out for the __Lacrosse team, the headmaster says  
I can be a __substitute player this year if the team captain  
permits __it and I don’t see why he wouldn’t. I was watching_  
_them practice today; they could use someone who_ _actually_  
knows what they’re doing.

 _I’ll have to stop here, they’re checking to make sure_ _the  
lights are all out and, besides, there isn’t anything __else to_  
write, I don’t start classes ‘till in the morning.

_Write back, I’m desperate._

_-William-_

 

William had been on the Lacrosse team at his old school and was looking forward to trying out for this one. While Emerson and Perkins had been arguing over who got Wallace, he’d watched the team playing in the secondary field. They were actually quite good, but it shouldn’t be a problem getting on, especially not as a substitute. Not that he was going to tell Tom that, see as he’d been one of the most valued players at Knox.

What he wasn’t looking forward to was the first day of classes. He hadn’t liked classes at Knox either, but at least he had known the professors. As William scanned the head table during breakfast it occurred to him that by the time he began to fit in at this place it would nearly be time to graduate. He started when Emerson leaned over and spoke in his ear, “You met Professor Kingsley, then.” William gave him a questioning look and he smirked, “You’ve been staring at him.”

Nodded, he tried not to blush even as he felt the telltale heat on the back of his neck. “Hadn’t realized I was staring. Is he always so...”

“Sinister, frightening, intimidating?”

“...I would have gone with ‘mean looking.’”

“When he assigns detention he makes you read the dictionary and copy down every word. He’ll check it, too. About a year ago Wallace accidentally missed one; genuine accident, too, Wallace is too much of a fairy to have tried it on purpose.”

“Oi! I am not a fairy!”

“Professor Kingsley actually caught it. One word missing and he caught it. Rumor is he has the dictionary memorized.”

William glanced back at the head table, but looked back down again when he saw Kingsley looking back at him. Oh, god, the last thing he needed was to get on a professor’s bad side before his first class. He leaned over to Emerson, not taking his eyes off the breakfast sausages he was moving around his plate. “What’s he teach, then?”

“English, and he’s a stickler for detail. If you misspell so much as one word in an essay, he’ll make you write it over by hand,” Emerson paused, “during detention.”

“He can’t assign detention for a misspelled word!”

Wallace chuckled, “He calls it disrespectful and Father Mathis seems to agree. Perkins tried to get the Headmaster in on it one time and he ended up having to write it anyway, as well as an essay on why you should respect your elders.”

A bell rang overhead and Emerson stood up, “First period in five minutes.”

 

 

 

*****

 

 

There was Professor Foster, a short, fat little man that taught Arithmetic’s and who was, as William had predicted, far more intimidating than Kingsley. While he was solving problems with his back to the class William had the sudden urge to throw himself out the window. He would have done, too, if they’d been on the third or even second floor, but as the arithmetic class was on the first, he didn’t think he could do enough damage to justify having tried.

His first impression of Foster was that he wouldn’t want to handle anything after him. He seemed to sweat constantly and he gave off an unpleasant odor that made William immediately realize he would not be asking him for help. The less time he had to spend in his presence the better.

Professor Marlon taught Biology, in which he was beginning to discuss the insides of a cat. Apparently they were to be partaking in the ‘delightful’ activity of dissecting one sometime within the month. Not to say he was generally squeamish, but William had serious plans to make a suicide attempt if they tried to force him to cut open an animal. Other than that he was pleasant, by far the youngest of the staff, and he had a rather cheery attitude for someone who spent the day discussing the digestive track of felines.

Unfortunately, most religious schools required that its students learn Latin, something that Knox had not. At Knox William had been learning French, being one of the more useful languages offered. French, however, was not an option at St. Christoff’s and Professor Owen, a tall dark skinned professor, was given the task of trying to teach him enough Latin over the next few months so that he could start school in the coming year with his own class. It was a near impossible task, in fact William would go so far as to say it was impossible because he had no intentions of doing anything more than required in the foreign language department. He could speak French nearly fluently and that should have been more than enough for them.

After listening to the students twitter on in Latin, he was forced to listen to Professor Lanford twitter on about history. Normally, he didn’t mind history when it was written in an entertaining form or presented in a motion picture. He just wasn’t fond of listening to teacher’s drone out names and dates at him that he wouldn’t remember by the end of the day, let alone exams.

Fifth period was a computer course, something William had been looking forward to. Seeing as his father paid so little attention to him, his mother had found it necessary to buy him things she thought would keep him occupied and computers had been on the top of both their lists. He loved computers, they were fascinating and, best of all, they had the internet. Internet access equaled porn, especially if you were good at bypassing whatever security measures might have been taken. And he was good.

Professor Preston taught Computer Science and instantly recognized William’s talent - meaning he left him alone because he thought that he understood the material and assumed that he was working on school work when what he was really doing was checking up on the latest football scores and trying to think up ways to look at naked blokes without the other students noticing.

English ended up being the last class of the day. William walked in very quietly, sat down in the back of the room, and tried to blend in. Professor Kingsley came in just as the bell rang with a stiff, purposeful stride and everyone in the room went instantly quiet.

When he called roll William noticed that Kingsley said his name with a particularly distasteful look on his face. He’d wanted to ask why, but decided against it. As he went on saying the names of his other classmates he found that his attention was drawn again to the man’s voice. As he’d predicted, it didn’t really matter what Kingsley was saying and William wasn’t usually bad at English, really, but during that first day he had a sinking feeling that he wasn’t going to be paying very much attention to what was actually being done in class.

By the time they were let out, he had gotten a fairly good feel for how Professor Kingsley treated his students. Although William hadn’t had the pleasure of seeing him assign detention, he had heard him read a particularly bad essay out loud for the soul purpose of making sure whoever had written it never underachieved again. At least he hoped that was the purpose, because if it wasn’t then Professor Kingsley was far crueler than William thought.

After eating a particularly bland dinner of sausages and mashed potatoes, Emerson introduced him to the lacrosse team captain, a seventh year boy named Gregory Baun. Baun was a rather thick boy that didn’t seem to care whether William was listed as a player or alternate or not at all. When he told him he’d been on the team at Knox Baun simply shrugged and said fine and that he should show up to practice.

Perkins said that Baun was on the lacrosse team because he’d been unable to make the football team, which was the real pride of the school. William had considered playing football when he was younger, it definitely got more recognition than lacrosse, but in the end it had come down to one simple fact: his father had been the star player on his football team, which absolutely ruined it for William.

There really was nothing to do in the evenings. At Knox there had been a common room for group activities and they’d been given the use of a movie room on the weekends to keep them occupied. St. Christoff’s seemed to be under the impression that students should spend their free time doing homework or reading educational literature. Of course, the Professors did give them enough homework to fill all of their time, but he’d never been one for putting all that much effort into it.

Emerson and Perkins were talking about what they intended to do that weekend, something William decided not to join in on as it seemed to involve women, and Wallace was dutifully doing homework for all three of them. He gave Emerson a nod and went up to bed early, thinking that a long night’s sleep, while not the most productive of things he could be doing, was at least better than sitting around discussing women with a bunch of straight men when he’d rather be nailing one of them.

He lay in bed for hours thinking that over. Emerson was very attractive, if snobbish and over confident, and with the way he ranted on and on about women it was very easy to imagine that he was over compensating for something. Maybe, but after only one day William didn’t think he was comfortable enough to try and find out.

Curling onto his side, he closed my eyes and tried to think of anything that wasn’t going to lead to exotic dreams.

 

 

*****

 

 

Baun was about as enthusiastic about lacrosse as William was about football, but he was very also good. At their first practice it became readily apparent why he had been made captain. He was brilliant on the field, but his brilliance did not make up for the fact that he gave next to no instructions during practice. He was on the field long enough to pass the ball a few times, very accurately and from great distances, then he sat down on the bench and watched.

William hadn’t really cared if he was on a winning team, one of his main goals as part of a lacrosse team was to remain a necessary, but low key player. This, however, was horrible. If they played like this during games it was little wonder that the football team was the school’s pride and joy.

After half an hour he sat out and Baun didn’t seem to mind. He gave William an appreciative nod that he couldn’t quite interpret and didn’t care to try. The late afternoon had been hot, with little wind and he still had homework to half-arse before going to bed.

It seemed that in less than twenty-four hours he had thoroughly established himself as part of Emerson’s click, which wouldn’t have been all bad if they hadn’t been homophobic sycophants. All they did was talk about women and sports. Anything else seemed to be a forbidden topic for fear of being labeled ‘not one of the guys,’ which was starting to look like an appealing option. He wasn’t sure if it were possible to make other friends and still remain on Emerson’s good side, or even if the idea was worth exploring.

He was heading back to the room when William saw Professor Kingsley walking the hall, staring at him with an odd sort of expression. He made eye contact, but didn’t say anything as he walked by, so William certainly didn’t expect the loud, “Mr. Bryce” that issued from behind him the moment he had passed.

Turning around, he gripped his books particularly hard. They had nearly fallen from his hands in surprise. “Yes, Professor?”

Professor Kingsley’s frown deepened. “You will not address me in such a familiar fashion. It is Professor Kingsley, not Professor, not Kingsley. It is also very disrespectful to pass one of your elders without saying hello. You’ll report to detention tomorrow evening.”

Without another word he stormed off, leaving William open mouthed in the hall. He’d given him detention for not saying ‘hello?’ What...? “Professor Kingsley!” He only half turned, eyeing William suspiciously. “I... Professor, don’t you think...”

“Professor Kingsley, Mr. Bryce.” He interrupted, “and if you forget again, I’ll add another detention.”

“Professor Kingsley, don’t you think that’s a little extreme? I didn’t realize...”

“Now you do. Tomorrow evening, before dinner, my classroom.” He turned around and walked off and William couldn’t find the words to say anything. He’d been at St. Christoff’s for two days and he already had detention. His parents were going to love this.

 

 

*****

 

 

Over the next two months William tried his best to stay out of Professor Kingsley’s way. It wasn’t that the detentions were all that horrible, or that he was that intimidated by the man, he had just never had a professor that seemed to dislike him so much for no reason. Although, to be fair, Professor Kingsley seemed to dislike everyone, there were just some that he liked less than others and William seemed to rank nearly as low as anyone could possibly get. The only person he seemed to avidly hate more than him was Wallace, which William couldn’t understand because Wallace was one of the few people who actually knew what Professor Kingsley was talking about most times.

The first lacrosse game was coming within the week, but Baun kept insisting that the team did perfectly well without him breathing down their necks, so they continued to have unstructured practice three days a week. For the first time in his life William considered joining the football team, at least they seemed to enjoy themselves when they were on the field.

In those two months he made two great accomplishments. One was that he amassed more detentions in that short time span than his entire tenure at Knox. This surprised him because he had been trying at Knox and here it seemed that all he had to do was raise an eyebrow at the wrong time. The second was that he earned the friendship of most of his piers, something he had been worried about as he hadn’t met new people in quite a while. Emerson, Perkins, and Wallace had remained his inner most circle, but he had succeeded in establishing himself as an alright bloke all around.

The only problem with that was his reputation had been earned by the rumors Emerson passed around about him. They weren’t lies, in fact, they were outright truth (he had been kicked out of his last school for fingering a girl), but this made it very difficult to come out and say he was gay when every boy that approached him in the first few weeks was patting him on the back for getting farther with a woman than most of them had.

And if telling his schoolmates was difficult, then telling his parents was downright impossible. He hadn’t even bothered trying. There was a part of him, however minute, that didn’t want to give his father yet another thing to be disappointed in. So he focused on going day-by-day, living a complete lie and not entirely sure when he’d be free of it. Certainly not any time within the next year.

There was a telephone for student use, but access was based on individual student behavior and William’s had not been exemplary. He was sitting in his room after classes when a scrawny second year came in, looking slightly nervous, and talking very fast. “Father Mathis says you can use the phone for fifteen minutes and he says that you should call your parents.”

William stared at the empty doorway as the boy ducked out of sight and listened to the heavy footsteps running down the corridor. After taking a moment to replay the message in slow motion, he got up from the bed. The telephone was located at the bottom of the stairs near the center of the school, which he suspected was meant to prevent people from talking about private matters. Things were often so quiet that every word of a conversation could be made out as far up as the fifth floor.

It had taken him several minutes of staring at the phone to decide who he should call. Despite what Father Mathis might have suggested, he wasn’t calling my parents. If they had something to say they could write a letter. Eventually, he decided that it would only be right to call Tom at Knox and fill him in the events that had happened as of so far. He hadn’t written back and William couldn’t bring himself to write him a second letter.

Knox had a very relaxed policy regarding phone use. Every student was allowed one call a week and they were allowed to receive calls so long as the person calling did not do so after lights out. William didn’t recognize the voice that answered the communal phone at Knox, but that didn’t matter. He asked for Tom Linnel and they ran off screaming for him. It was a good two minutes before he picked up.

“This is Tom.”

“Tom, it’s William.”

“William!” He held the phone away from his ear. “Where have you been? I wrote you over a month ago and you never wrote back. Is it true? Tanya says you’re...” he lowered his voice slightly, “gay? Did you really make out with her? Because if you did, that’s just disgusting, mate, you have no idea where she’s been.” A loud smacking resounded from the other end of the phone, “Ow! It’s true!”

William started to say something, but Tanya had apparently grabbed the phone. “William, are you okay?”

With a heavy sigh, he nodded before realizing they couldn’t see it. “Yes, I’m fine. I never got his letter.”

“Tom’s been acting like a love-sick puppy. All he talks about is you and whether they have you chained up in some basement reciting Hale Mary’s. Are you really in an all boys’ school?”

“Yes, Tanya. Can I talk to Tom?”

“Lucky bastard.”

There was a pause as the phone was passed. “Yeah?”

William looked up the stairs, making sure no one was leaning over the railing. Despite the fact they couldn’t hear what Tom said, he still felt insecure about the lack of privacy. “Did she tell everyone?”

“No, of course not.” He started to sigh in relief, “She just told everyone that counted.”

“Oh, god.”

“I’m kidding.”

He would have strangled Tom if he were standing next to him. “That was not funny.”

“So, is it true?”

He considered the answer, but couldn’t think of what to say, so he decided to play it dumb until the proper words came to him. “Yes, Tom, I made it with Tanya. It was horrible, like sinking my fingers into a...”

“Not that!” Tom sounded annoyed, but then William was being annoying. “Are you gay?”

“I...”

“Mr. Bryce!” William had never been so glad to hear Professor Kingsley’s voice. It wasn’t that he was afraid to tell Tom, it was just... well, he was scared shitless. Tanya had been a safe bet - she was notorious for hanging out with gay men in her hometown - but Tom had been his best friend since they were eleven and he really didn’t wanted to even face the possibility of losing him. “You were told you had a fifteen minute phone privilege over twenty minutes ago.”

“Yes, Professor! I have to go.” He hung up the phone before Tom could say anything.

Damn his cowardice.

“Mr. Bryce! I do so hate to repeat myself.” William looked back up, startled that Kingsley was still there, leaning over the second floor balcony. “You are to address me as Professor Kingsley and you will report for detention tomorrow evening.”

And damn him, too.

 

 

*****

 

 

William’s father once told him that in America it was customary for students to be referred to by their first names. According to him even some of the lower year teachers are referred to as Mr. and Ms. first name. Unfortunately, that did not apply at St. Christoff’s – at St. Christoff’s, he got called Bryce by half the student body and Mr. Bryce by all of the Professors. He was beginning to feel like his father and Baun was not helping.

He woke William the morning of our first game by shaking my shoulder and yelling, “Bryce. Bryce!”

William tried to give him an evil glare, but it didn’t work very well with his hair hanging in a dark, disorderly mess over his face and a trail of crusty drool running down his chin. ‘There is no way I look sexy right now.’ He stopped the thought and restrained the urge to slap himself. Of all the people he could care about looking sexy in front of, Baun should have been one of the last.

“I’m up, Baun, stop shaking me!” He backed up, but William caught a little half smirk on his face and tried to ignore it. “Why did you wake me?”

He was full on smiling by then and it was creepy; Baun never smiled. “Team members have to be on the field an hour before the game, _big boy_ , whether they’re playing or not. Now come on and... well, you might want to have a shower first.”

He might want to...? As Baun closed the door behind him, William looked down with growing dread. Oh, for the love of... was the entire world out to make him look like a prat? Wait a moment, ‘big boy?’ Had that been a reference to size? He looked down again as he wrapped the sheets around his waist. Well, if someone was going to catch him with morning wood and make a comment about it, then ‘big boy’ wasn’t all that bad.

Despite the suggestion, William couldn’t find it in himself to toss-off in the locker room shower. The stalls were individual, thank god, but there was still something about other students mulling around the shower room that didn’t make it easy for him to pull it out and have a tug, so he got dressed and went out to the field.

Baun and the rest of the team were already sitting on the benches. William couldn’t decide if he was disturbed, disgusting, or intrigued by the way his team captain looked at him when he saw him coming. In fact, he was so conflicted that he missed the entire pre-game speech.

It wasn’t that Baun was unattractive – he was more muscular than William normally liked, his hair was shorter, practically buzzed, and he had the overall feel of a jock, something that normally did not turn William on in the least. But then, who was he to go around being picky? It wasn’t as though he’d had a great line of men hanging out his door. But… Baun?

William took another look while he was showing one of the other boys something and stifled a sigh. He couldn’t even be sure he was interested in him that way. He might have just been trying to embarrass him. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had used that on him for the sake of embarrassment.

A year ago, at the start of his fifth year, one of the boys that shared the dorm with him and Tom had made a comment that if William was going to make those kind of noises in his sleep he’d have to invest in ear plugs. While William had been thoroughly embarrassed, the wink the boy gave him afterward made his early morning situation even worse.

So he put the morning’s incident in the back of his mind and concentrated on the game. Baun had been right; while the team was shite in practice they were decent on the field. They won by a minimal margin, but won nonetheless. William was promised that next game he’d get to go out and have some fun. When Baun said that, it occurred to him that ‘having fun’ was what they had been doing. None of them seemed to take the game too seriously. It was just something to do other than study and listen to religious fanatics lecture them on the evils that tempt youth. He could handle that.

Every team has its routine and at St. Christoff’s the lacrosse team practiced how they wanted and every member of the team left the field when he felt too tired or worn out to continue. William had worked very hard over the past two months to not be caught in the locker rooms when any other boys were there. It just would have been awkward and embarrassing and he did not feel like explaining a hard-on to a naked team member.

Unfortunately, games tend to upset routine. When it was over they filed into the locker room at the same time and William was struck rather dumb as the crowd of boys around him began undressing. With Knox having put more emphasis on privacy, there had occasionally been boys running around in their briefs or with shirts off, but it was very rare at Knox for them to entirely strip down in front of their piers and stand around talking in the buff. Apparently, this was perfectly normal at St. Christoff’s.

Under his clothes, it appeared Baun was just about pure muscle, his back literally rippled when he laughed, his legs might as well have been chiseled rock, and... well, not bad there either. William sat down quickly, draped a towel over his lap, and pretended that he was tired from… absolutely nothing. It wasn’t as though he’d done anything other than sit on a bench for the past few hours.

He managed to keep himself under control for all of five minutes, right up until Manik stopped next to him, completely starkers, and began talking about something that required a lot of moving around and hand motions. ‘Natural blond,’ went through his head before he could manage to make himself stand up and enter the nearest shower, praying that no one noticed he was sporting possibly the most agonizing hard-on in his entire life.

Between that morning and Manik’s swinging display, William had the sinking feeling he was going to end up with a horrible case of blue balls. Unless, of course, he were to take care of it right then. Despite what apprehensions he may have had that morning he was surprised to find that there was suddenly something distinctly exciting about the idea of tossing off with only a thin curtain between him and twenty other naked men.

William leaned back against the tiled wall and turned on the shower, giving himself a few experimental strokes. When he didn’t hear anything that indicated someone had noticed, he tightened his grip and quickened the pace, stiffening his legs both for extra support and added tension.

It had been nearly two weeks since he’d had the opportunity to so much as think about masturbating so it wasn’t very long before he came, biting his lip to keep from crying out.

“Bryce, you in there?”

William ducked under the shower head, nearly yelping as cold water pelted his chest. Really should have checked the temperature. “Yes!”

Baun opened the curtain and William just about fell on his arse. Did they ever put clothes on? “One of the second years just came down, says Father Mathis wants to see you. I think he has a letter or something.”

As soon as he’d closed the curtain William leaned forward and put his head against the tile, slowly turning the tap to warm the water. He officially hated game days.


	3. Chapter 3

William had said that if his parents wanted to talk to him they could write, and they apparently had. It wasn’t one of those ‘how are you doing in your new school, we miss you’ letters, either. No, he’d never received one of those from his parents. It turned out they wanted him home for the holidays, which meant they were hosting the annual Christmas function for his father’s office and they thought it would look bad if he weren’t there.

It wasn’t as though his family even celebrated Christmas. William’s father didn’t believe in any holiday. He didn’t believe in Christmas, because he thought the idea had been warped by the corporate world; he didn’t believe in the American holiday Thanksgiving, even though he was from America, because he had the notion that it should be a national day of mourning and not a celebration; he didn’t believe in Valentine’s Day because people shouldn’t have to wait all year to express their love for one another; he did, however, believe in St. Patrick’s Day, but only because he got to drink copious amounts of alcohol.

William supposed that his father’s beliefs and other shortcomings were the result of his family back in America, but he couldn’t say for sure as he’d never met them. He knew that his father had lived in America until he was fifteen, at which time he had either been kicked out or run away, he never really clarified which, and eventually ended up in England with his grandmother – William never was sure from which side. She died less than a year later, leaving provisions for him to continue attending Knox academy and her fortune once he had graduated.

William’s mother had been raised by an upper crust family that William had seen only once when he was ten. They disowned her when she married his father directly after graduating, though the details of whatever disgrace she’d committed were never clarified. The only clear memory he had of them was that they smelled of stale red wine and cigars, and had looked at him with utter contempt. He didn’t like them very much; in fact, he almost hated them as much as he hated his father with the slight exception of not knowing them well enough.

Sitting at his desk in class the next day, he perused the letter lazily while Professor Kingsley read a passage from a famous literary critic. His mother had meticulous handwriting. He loved to trace the neat cursive, loved the way it curled and stretched across the page in little perfectly spaced lines. It was like poetry.

He was so wrapped up in tracing a perfectly formed ‘o’ that he didn’t notice Professor Kingsley had asked him a question until someone kicked the back of his chair. He looked up, slightly shocked, but aware of what the signal meant. It had become common knowledge after his first four detentions that William had trouble paying attention in Professor Kingsley’s class and Waylen, who sat behind him, had gotten used to knocking him out of inappropriately timed stupors.

Professor Kingsley was not amused. “Am I to assume I finally have your attention?” William blushed at the sharp click of his words while several others chuckled. “We were discussing a very prominent Shakespearean critic, Mr. Bryce. I was wondering what your thoughts on the subject were.”

There were two parts of his mind that clashed every time Professor Kingsley singled him out. One of them told him to say nothing, or if he had to, to say something that wouldn’t get him into trouble. The other generally had control over his mouth. “It seems to me that it’s a bit absurd to go around criticizing one of the greatest authors of all time.”

“Pardon?”

“I mean to say, can’t they just leave well enough alone?” Waylen sniggered from behind him and gave his chair a violent kick, lurching him forward slightly.

Professor Kingsley had come to stand next to his desk, looking down at him contemptuously. “Mr. Bryce, while you may find yourself to be highly amusing, I do not. I find you to be arrogant and obtuse. Further more...”

“Arrogant!” William half stood up, “This coming from a man who can’t stand to be called anything less than his full and complete title? If anyone is arrogant it’s...”

He was cut off when Waylen kicked the chair harder, knocking it into the back of his legs and forcing him to sit down again. William looked back at him, intending to tell him off for interrupting his rant, but Waylen’s face had blanched and he was looking purposefully down at the blank piece of paper on his desk.

Professor Kingsley slammed his hand on William’s desk to get his attention and leaned over him, lowering his voice to a deadly kind of whisper, “You have tried my patience once too often, Mr. Bryce. I am getting very weary of your refusal to show due respect to your elders. If it were in my powers I would take a switch to your backside. Since it is not, I will have to make do with less persuasive means of discipline. Detention, Mr. Bryce, every night for the next two weeks and if you so much as step a toe out of line, I will speak with the headmaster about having you banned from the lacrosse team. Do I make myself clear?”

William shifted nervously slightly in his seat and promptly froze. Oh god, he was hard. He was more than hard, actually, he was bloody well throbbing and if it hadn’t been for the awkward position he was sitting in it would have been all too obvious. Trying to appear as though nothing were wrong, he nodded mutely and Professor Kingsley backed off, walking towards the front of the class and lecturing as though nothing had just happened.

Oh bloody hell. William set my head on the desk and bit back a groan. This was the last thing he needed to deal with right now. To make things worse, he couldn’t even discern which is more disturbing, that he had gotten erect after Professor Kingsley had threatened to take a switch to him, or that corporal punishment was not condoned at St. Christoff’s, because at that moment William couldn’t help but wonder what it would take to make him lose his temper and actually go through with it and that was not helping.

Just great. Just bloody well perfect.

 

 

*****

 

 

Twenty minutes later the bell rang. William had finally succeeded in ridding himself of his not-so-little problem, but had inadvertently created another one. As though he hadn’t earned enough ‘respect’ for the rumors about Tanya, now he had to contend with people slapping him on the back for standing up to Professor Kingsley.

Emerson had been one of the few who seemed to understand that what he’d done in the classroom had neither been a show of bravery, nor a positive thing in any way. He might as well have painted a target on his back, because if he’d thought that Kingsley had been out for his blood before now...

He tried to eat dinner in stoic silence, but William had barely begun to sulkily shovel food into his mouth when he heard Baun talking to one of the other seventh years behind him, “Father Mathis says we’re playing some kind of practice game here next week.”

Turning around, he nudged Baun in the back. “Practice game?”

“Yeah. Says he’s been talking to another headmaster and they thought it would be beneficial if our schools got together for a friendly match.”

He started to turn, but William caught his shoulder, “Which school?”

“Knox something or other.”

“Knox Preparatory Academy?”

“Yeah, that one.”

He turned away and it took William a moment to turn back to his own food. Tom had been on the lacrosse team with him, but he’d been a reserve, not one of the usual players. Knox probably wouldn’t send the female players, though, since St. Christoff’s was an all-boy’s school, which meant they would have to send all of the reserves, which meant Tom would be coming in a week’s time, which further meant, he had one week to figure out exactly how he was going to tell Tom that he was gay.

 

 

*****

 

 

Saturday morning the Knox Preparatory Academy’s lacrosse team pulled into the school on a familiar, midnight-blue bus. William watched out the fifth floor window as they were greeted by Professor Lanford and escorted toward the field and the secondary changing rooms. It wasn’t hard to spot Tom’s golden blonde hair shining in the early afternoon sun. He’d always been one of the shorter members of the team, with William standing only two inches taller, and he was often lost in the sea of much taller boys, but that wasn’t a problem at this vantage.

He looked up at the school and William ducked down under the window, irrationally afraid that he would be able to see him. The game was going to start in an hour-and-a-half and he was still stuck on the idea of having to tell his best friend that he was gay. In fact, it had become such a distraction over the last week that he had asked Baun if he could be excused from playing. He’d finally agreed, saying that they had enough players and Professor Mathis wanted to make a really good impression, so if William wasn’t up to snuff it was probably a good idea to bench him.

When it was time to go down, he changed quickly, but stayed in the locker room until the last of the team had left - the less time he spent on the field, the better. He’d just made it out the door when a hand shot out and grabbed him around a corner. Without any warning William was embraced in a crushing hug. “William!”

It smelled like Tom. He’d never really associated a smell with his best friend, but it was definitely there, and it was unmistakably Tom. His hair smelled like that cheap shampoo he insisted on using and the slightly musky odor of sweat. He pulled back and William found himself wishing that he could bury my nose back in that sun bleached hair.

Tom was out of breath and William didn’t wonder that he had run around the entire field to make it to their changing room without being seen. “William, you are a prat for avoiding me.”

“I haven’t been avoiding you.” Even as a slight flush in his ears crept onto his face.

“You have, too, you can’t lie for shite.” William leaned back against the wall, avoiding eye contact. “So what, you just thought you’d avoid me until I forgot? I’m not going to forget, William. We’ve been best friends for nearly six years I’m not going to just forget something that important.”

William dropped his head, staring at the floor.

“Would you just look at me?” William looked up reluctantly. “William, I am, too. Does that make it easier?”

William’s throat closed up and he gaped like a fish while Tom stood there, arms wide in a dramatic pose. Tanya had often called him a drama queen, which actually had a whole new level of meaning now. “William?”

He had to force himself to speak, “You mean that?”

Tom half smiled and lowered his arms, “Yes, I’m gay, William. I’ve always been, but it’s not easy to come out and say it, is it?”

He leaned against the wall beside William and looked at his feet for a moment before lifting his gaze. William found himself smiling despite the seriousness of the situation and Tom leaned towards him, a sly grin spreading on his own face. “You know, not to be...”

He paused thoughtfully and William said the first thing that popped into his head, trying to keep from sounding overly hopeful. “Presumptuous?” He’d never thought of Tom in that particular way before, but far be it for him to ignore it now that the opportunity presented itself.

Tom leaned away from him, eyeing William with suspicion. “I was going to say forward. What have you been doing - reading a dictionary?”

“Yes, actually.” He chuckled at Tom’s shock. “One of the Professors here absolutely delights in making me copy the dictionary during detention.”

“And you’ve made it to ‘presumptuous?’”

“I’ve made it to ‘ramification’ and I’m really hoping he doesn’t make me start over when I’ve finished.”

Tom moved to stand in front of him and put his arms around William shoulders, smiling crookedly. “You poor thing. Is there anything I can do to make it better?”

William tried to ignore the flushed heat in his cheeks and hesitantly put a hand on Tom’s waist. “Maybe?”

Tom pressed his lips nervously against William’s. It felt... different. Tom’s lips were smaller and stiffer than Tanya’s had been and he didn’t seem to be quite as experienced. He just kind of held them there for a moment, as though he were testing the waters.

William’s hand slipped down to his hip and rested against the thin material of his shorts. He tentatively moved his mouth against Tom’s, pulling him to rest against his body. He fit just right, slightly smaller and his build a little finer. It felt nothing like when William had held Tanya, where she had been soft, he was hard, where she had been curves, Tom was angles. William couldn’t hold back the involuntary moan that escaped his throat and it was like he’d had said a magic word.

Tom wrapped his arms tighter around William’s neck, pressing himself into the other boy and, before William could fully comprehend even that much, Tom’s tongue was in his mouth and he nearly choked at the suddenness of it all. Tom pulled back, looking at him in concern, “Is it okay?”

He nodded, dazed. “It’s fine, I just wasn’t expecting it, is all.” A small grin flitted across his face, “Never took you for a wanton little tramp.”

“Wanton little tramp?” Tom sounded somewhat indignant, but more surprised. He leaned in again, resting his mouth next to William’s ear and lowering his voice huskily. “I’ve been having dreams ever since Tanya told me.”

“D... dreams?” William stuttered as the hot breath and implications made shivers run down his spine.

He moaned a kind of ‘uhhu’ into William’s ear. “Oh, yes, dirty little dreams about you and me. I’d had dreams before, but not like these. They were so real I had to touch myself afterwards.” William’s cock was semi-hard and pressed against Tom’s hip. He tightened his grip, pulling Tom’s body tighter against his in an attempt to increase the friction.

“William?!” They jumped apart and as quickly as he’d hardened William shrank as they stood a respectable distance apart, their faces ridden with guilt and embarrassment.

Baun came around the corner a moment later. “There you are, I’ve been looking everywhere for you...” He looked over at Tom, who was busy studying his feet again. It was one of his more adorable nervous habits. William startled slightly at my own thoughts of Tom as adorable, but didn’t have time to explore them. “Who’s this, then?”

“This is Tom, he’s a friend of mine from Knox. Tom, this is Baun, the lacrosse team captain.”

Baun quirked an eyebrow, but said nothing about their still flushed faces or awkward stances. “Right. William, the headmaster is furious; you’d better come up with a really good reason for being late.”

“I was sick from breakfast.”

“If he’ll believe you. Come on, you may be on the bench, but you still have to be there.”

He turned around to walk off and William looked anxiously at Tom. “I’ll talk to you later, at dinner.” Tom nodded and followed them to field.

 

 

*****

 

 

Knox won by a margin of two points. Tom sat on the side lines and for the first half of the game they kept glancing at each other and blushing, but Baun, who was sitting next to him during half time, mumbled something about ‘childhood sweethearts’ so William kept his eyes on the grass after that.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about Baun knowing he was gay. Of all the people that could have found out he was both the best and the worst, because while William had yet to hear him gossip about a single person in the school, he was the captain of the lacrosse team and he had to shower with him. After the game, William hid himself in one of the stalls and waited till everyone had left to get dressed.

As if Baun finding out and a shower full of naked players weren’t bad enough, dinner was horrific. Tom sat next to him, occasionally touching his leg to William’s, purposefully looking down at his plate as he did so. This would have been inconspicuous had it not been for the team captain sitting across from them, raising his eyebrow every time he felt movement.

The team from Knox was split into two rooms for the night, but that didn’t stop all fifteen of them from congregating in William’s dorm room and asking him all sorts of insipid questions about the school and how could he stand it there with the medieval atmosphere and how they couldn’t believe the toilets even flushed.

In between the questions about the school and the introductions between them and the rest of his dorm mates, there were of course the many differing reactions to the situation that had gotten him expelled. Tanya was at the very least good on her word. She had not been the one to spread the news to the entire academy – that honor went to a second year who had apparently walked past the headmaster’s office when he’d been yelling at William.

The incident had become the talk of the school, especially seeing as there had been running bets on who he’d end up with before the end of the year. William wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or disturbed that his sex life was a topic of interest, but he supposed flattered would have to do. Unlike most teenagers, William had never been outwardly interested in anyone, girl or boy, before then so he could understand their curiosity. However, unlike the pats on the back he’d gotten when the rumors spread at St. Christoff’s, his classmates at Knox actually knew Tanya and her reputation. He ended up with one or two congratulations for finally becoming a man, and the rest were torn between “why?” and “what was it like?” with varying degrees of horror and awe in their voices.

When they finally retired for bed, William laid very still, listening for sounds that told him everyone was asleep. It wasn’t until Perkins began snoring that he felt it was safe enough to sneak out of his curtained bed and across the room into the one that he knew Tom occupied.

Tom was sitting up, propped against the wall with a smile on his face. William sat at the other end of the bed. “Hey.”

It felt weird to be whispering secretively to him in the middle of the night with twenty other people sleeping only a few feet from them. Tom’s mouth twitched and he fell forward, burying his face in the blankets. When he looked up, his cheeks were bright pink with embarrassment. “Bloody hell, but this is awkward.”

William chuckled a little, holding his hand over his mouth to muffle it. After a moment they managed to calm down, although William could still feel little butterflies jittering around in his stomach. Tom wiped at the corners of his eyes. “I can’t stop laughing.”

A sudden urge seized him and William decided that if he were ever going to do something impulsive, now was the time. Lunging forward, he pressed his lips to Tom’s in a fumbled kiss. He hadn’t been at all sure that it was the right thing to do, but after the first few seconds Tom seemed to get over his surprise and kiss back.

William’s hand found the back of Tom’s head and he pushed his fingers into strands of blond hair while they continued the deepening kiss. He marveled at how soft Tom’s hair was, not silky, but it wasn’t coarse. It was exactly the texture you would expect from someone who spent a great deal of time playing sports and sweating.

After several long minutes they pulled apart and William grinned at Tom’s flushed cheeks, struck dumb by the lingering taste of someone else in his mouth. “That was...”

Tom grinned back, “Brilliant?”

“Remarkable.”

His grin broadened. “I thought you hadn’t made it that far.”

William leaned in to start kissing again, but there was a particularly loud snore to they’re left and they leapt apart.   By the time their hearts had slowed to something resembling normal they were far too shaken to continue making out, so they settled for talking in hushed tones, listening for any signs that someone had woken.

It wasn’t until the first rays of light were pouring through the window that they realized exactly how tired they were. William yawned heavily, holding back a chuckle when Tom followed suit. Leaning forward, he gave Tom a quick kiss before standing up to head to his own bed.

Just outside the curtains a thought struck him and he peaked back in. “Hey, Tom.”

“Yeah?”

“You want to come to my parent’s over Christmas break? Only they want me to come and I don’t think it’ll be much fun, but if you were there...”

He trailed off as Tom got a rather wicked grin on his face. “Brilliant.”

Giving him another quick kiss, William ran to his bed and laid down just as he heard some of the boys shifting restlessly in their beds. For the first time in his life he was genuinely looking forward to going home for the holidays.

 

 

*****

 

 

He was losing his mind. That really was the only explanation. He was abso-bloody-lutely losing his mind. It wasn’t an uncommon thing during exam weeks, and though not as bad as finals, midterms were no laughing matter. If a student were going to try and commit suicide there was an eighty percent chance that it would happen during the weeks before exams, and a twenty percent chance it would happen just before the end of holidays when they realized they had to come back.

Exams counted for nearly fifty percent of his marks at St. Christoff’s, and with only one week before he had to take them, it was no small wonder that William was having stress-induced nightmares. Of course, he couldn’t have the normal kind, though, could he? No, he couldn’t have the one where all the teachers are announcing you’d made a zero or the one where you dream that you woke up late and missed the exams entirely.

No, he had to have dreams about Professor Kingsley throwing his over his desk and spanking him once for every grammatical error he’d made. He’d never been very good at grammar. And to make matters worse, his body wasn’t react to them as nightmares. He kept waking up with erections and had a very difficult time not blushing every time Kingsley handing back an assignment with corrections on it. Not to mention that William was finding the idea of utterly failing not entirely unappealing.

This, coupled with the daytime fantasies he kept falling into about Tom, made it extremely difficult to concentrate. One minute he’d be reading about the Hundred Years War, the next he’d be at his parents’ country estate, showing Tom that his old tree fort hadn’t entirely lost its charm; or he’d be showing him exactly why it was such a good thing that his parents had insisted on giving him a king sized bed; or that they could do more than just eat at the breakfast table... overall, it had gotten entirely out of hand.

He had written to his parents toward the end of October to ask if Tom could stay, but they had yet to respond. Not that he was surprised, unless they had something constructive to say they usually wrote as little as possible - his mother, because she was a busy socialite and his father, because he could have cared less what William had to say. Besides all that, asking was a formality. His parents hadn’t denied him having a guest over for holidays in years and they weren’t likely to start now, especially seeing as they were forcing him to come home for one of their boring Christmas functions. The least they could do was give him someone to play with. Hmm, play with...

“Mr. Bryce!”

William shot up in his seat and his arm swept across the desk, knocking his papers and book onto the floor. Oh, damn, he’d done it again. “Yes, Professor,” Kingsley’s face darkened and William nearly bit his tongue. “Kingsley.”

“Mr. Bryce, it appears that you have once again decided to grace us with your inattention. Perhaps this time you would care to share your thoughts?”

_I want to bend my best friend over the old metal play swings and_... “No, sir.”

“And if I insist?”

... _watch him squirm_. “I’d have to decline.”

“I see.” Professor Kingsley put down the book he had apparently been reading to the class. This, of course, was what made it impossible for him to actually pay attention in Kingsley’s class. If he would just shut that sensual voice up for even one hour then William wouldn’t go off into sexual fantasies. “Then you will join me in detention once again. Only this time, instead of copying the dictionary, I believe I can find something more... productive for you to do.”

He did not need to pronounce the word ‘productive’ like that. He did not need to drag it out and dwell on it as if it were something slimy at the bottom of some forgotten pond or a delicate desert. It just sounded wrong and it made William remember all those stress-induced wet dreams. _Nightmares! Those were nightmares! There was nothing wet about them!_

He ignored the little voice that told him that was because he kept waking up too early.

 

 

*****

 

 

William’s father was a very rich man. He hadn’t always been, not before he’d come to England, but he had worked very hard to continue building the family fortune even after he’d received his inheritance. If William knew more about what he did he might be able to say he enjoyed it. As it was, he could only hazard to guess that he must, considering the number of hours he spent in the office in London.

Since his father was so very well off, they had more than one home. During the summers they stayed at a country estate up north, where there was nothing to do and no one to talk to; where the nearest bakery and sandwich shop were over ten kilometers away and all their neighbors were retired old gents that went on for hours about World War Two if he so much as stopped to say ‘hello.’ While William was at school his parents resided in a flat in London, just minutes from his father’s office, where they could shop, socialize, and attend fancy dinners.

Christmas could find them at either place. It simply depended on weather and occasion. Considering they had invited William to come home, he hoped that meant they were hosting some sort of formal dinner party and that would be in London proper where Tom and him could pretend to enjoy themselves, despite the fact that the blanketing snow would make traveling around the city a cold affair. In reality, he knew they would probably end up in the country, which his mother thought was enchanting.

William only wished that he could share her enthusiasm. As far as he was concerned the country was a rather boring place where nothing happened and he spent the entire day in his room, laying on the bed and watching the telly. Of course, despite the fact that his father could afford two houses, one of which was an estate, he never saw fit to provide them with anything more than basic television.

This was what he thought about as he scrubbed desks during detention. By productive, Professor Kingsley had not meant that he would be performing sexual favors (William refused to admit to being disappointed). Apparently after careful consideration Kingsley had realized that at his current rate William would receive enough detention to wash and scrub every classroom in the entire school before he graduated and perhaps even give the kitchens a once over.

After two hours of prying and pulling gum and other candies off the undersides of desks, William had decided that the species known as the straight man was a disgusting creature and that he was thoroughly proud not to be one of them.

Detention was not allowed to last past lights out, but it could extend right up to it. Emerson was lying on his bed, reading one of their English assignments when William finally stumbled in, muttering under his breath about treating students like slaves. He looked up, one eyebrow raised. “I take it you weren’t doing dictionary duty?”

“He’s making me clean the desks.” He laid on the bed with a dramatic sigh, one leg hanging off the edge. “All of them.”

Emerson chuckled into the pages. “You got a letter. Father Mathis brought it up while you were in detention.”

Sure enough, there was a letter on his trunk. It was opened, but he’d already gathered from Tom’s missing letters that Father Mathis screened their mail. He instantly recognized his mother’s script – her cursive with its swirling, dramatic capital letters at the beginning of every paragraph. In his more theatrical moments, Tom reminded William of his mother.

 

_Dear William_

_Your father and I will be picking you up at school_   
_December 16 th at which time we will attend a meeting _   
_with your headmaster. You and I will be residing in_   
_the country for Christmas; your father and his_   
_associates will be joining us for a dinner party on the_   
_twentieth._

_Please inform Tom that he is welcome to stay at the_   
_estate for the duration of one week, starting December_   
_27 th._

_Your Mother, Mrs. Adrianna Bryce_

 

Oh, yes, because if she hadn’t told him, he wouldn’t have known she was his mother. Grabbing his binder, he jotted a quick note to Tom, telling him what his mother had said, and folded it on his table. He’d have to go and see the headmaster in the morning about mailing it.

 

 

*****

 

 

Exams took place on a Wednesday, the professors had to have the grades posted before they left on Friday, when William’s mother and father would be in the headmaster’s office talking about his twenty-some-odd detentions and the fact that the school year was not even over yet.

It occurred to him on Monday, as he sat on his bed after lights out trying to study, that he had not asked Tom whether any of his letters had contained information about William being gay. He doubted it, because Father Mathis had not called him to his office, he hadn’t been shipped home, and there hadn’t been any slips of the tongue about his sexual orientation, or even the odd look in his direction. So he didn’t think Tom had said anything, but the fact remained that Father Mathis had read and then kept letters that William’s friends had written to him and William had begun to think he wanted them back.

He had a tendency to think about the oddest things when he was stressed. The idea that Father Mathis had kept the letters had not bothered him when he’d found out in October, but it ate at him now. He had an irrational fear that he was going to be outed to his parents on Friday and the prospect was daunting. Not to mention, that while he’d stopped having dreams about Professor Kingsley, the damage had already been done, because William couldn’t so much as look at his Professor without thinking about the dreams, and he still hadn’t found a decent place to masturbate without the fear that someone was going to poke their head in.

When Wednesday had finally come and gone, William had been so relieved that he’d very nearly cried. Instead, he lay on his bed, like the rest of the student body, and panted with relief. He hadn’t even done that badly. His English exam could have gone better – he could have read the end of the book that had been assigned, but he didn’t think he’d done too horribly.

The next two days had been free of classes, more or less. The professors needed time to grade papers, so the students were given leave to go into town, or do anything else that struck their fancy as long as it wasn’t loud or disruptive. Emerson had wanted to visit the village, so he, Perkins, Wallace, and William got up a little earlier than they normally would have on a free day, dressed a little nicer, and left without breakfast. William’s parents always gave him money at the beginning of each year and he still had plenty left, so they picked up lunch at one of the restaurants, which was a welcome change from school food.

When they’d eaten their fish and chips with mounds of catsup (another frivolity the school did not afford them) they’d made their way around the town, the other boys playing tour guide to William’s tourist. Due to all his detentions, this had been the first time he’d been allowed to visit. There was a regular bookstore and a naughty one, there was a small theater, and they contemplated going to see something even though there was nothing good playing. There was a playhouse that was currently running some drama or other than didn’t interest him.

They ended up spending the better part of the day in the naughty bookstore, which was a shame because he couldn’t shake the others off long enough to go look at anything that interested him. Before heading back, Perkins insisted that they stop at a small pub and have something to drink. The owner’s son didn’t mind bending the rules a little for the older boys as long it wasn’t a school night. William had never been a fan of alcohol and had to put up with the others saying that even Wallace had enough bullocks to drink a pint. Dealing with his parents while having a hang over was not on his list of goals for the next day and the way they were drinking, he would have most assuredly had a decent hang over in the morning.

It was sometime around eight in the evening, just before lights out, that they finally stumbled back into the dorms and their beds. As he lay there, listening to Perkins snore and Emerson mumble in his sleep, William fell asleep with only one thought in his head: he had to find a way to get to that bookstore alone.


	4. Chapter 4

William’s father, David Bryce, was six feet two inches, with short, pitch-black hair and deep-set, hazel grey eyes. He was tan with broad shoulders and had large hands that William sometimes found himself staring at in memory of the day he’d hit him. William could never forget the callused feel of his father’s palm on his left cheek. His mother in contrast was five foot five. She was tiny and delicate, with pale, porcelain skin, long, waving sandy-blond hair, and large, almond shaped, deep blue eyes. William considered himself an unfortunate mix of both.

Many people said that they saw much of his father in him – his skin, hazel eyes, and dark hair – but he liked to think that he resembled his mother a great deal. He had more of her structure, though not quite as small, and while he certainly had his father’s eyes they weren’t nearly as deep set.

Everything that Friday had started out as William had expected it to. His mother and father had arrived together just after breakfast in a new car, flashy as they always were, with his father wearing his best suit with his mother in all her aristocratic glory at his side and William had been escorted to the headmaster’s office by Professor Foster and his irritating smell. Once there William sat in a chair and pretended to listen as they discussed his inattentiveness and potential and how they all agreed that if he just applied himself, he would do so well.

Then the door opened.

William hadn’t thought it was a particularly catastrophic event, but when Professor Kingsley entered the room, his father’s fake smile dropped from his face and his mother stammered to a halt mid sentence.Professor Kingsley stopped in the doorway and stared like he expected something to happen at any moment and didn’t want to step into the middle of it.

William looked between the three of them and then back at Father Mathis, who seemed to be completely clueless. “Ah, Professor Kingsley, I’m glad you’ve come. I want you to meet Mr. Bryce and his wife. They’ve come to retrieve William and I thought perhaps you might like to have a word with them about their son’s behavior in your class.”

Kingsley scowled, but after a moment’s hesitation stepped forward and offered his hand, “Mr. David Bryce, I was unaware that William was _your_ son; although it does explain quite a bit.” He nodded curtly to William’s mother, “Adrianna.”

His father stood and clasped hands with Professor Kingsley in an overly curt manor. William watched the fingers of his Professor’s hands turn white as his father’s grip tightened. They looked like... he really wasn’t sure how to describe them best, other than that they were staring each other down and tightening their grips to the point that they might actually break the other’s hand at any moment.

“David!” William’s mother put her hand on his father’s arm and the man dropped Kingsley’s hand as though it were red hot. Or perhaps diseased, because he immediately began wiping his own hand on his slacks, though he never took his eyes off Professor Kingsley.

Father Mathis had finally realized that something other than an ordinary parent/teacher conference was taking place, but before he could ascertain what that might be William’s father began marching to the door. “Come, William.”

William’s mother put her hand on the back of his shoulder, pressing William forward and he went because he couldn’t think of anything else to do. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Father Mathis, and,” she nodded at Professor Kingsley and her cheeks tinted pink, “Renauld.”

William looked back at his mother is absolute disbelief. Had she just called his Professor ‘Renauld?’ Was that his first name? He didn’t even know that Professor Kingsley had a first name. It should have been obvious, everyone has a first name, William just hadn’t had the occasion to consider what it might be before.

His father insisted on waiting by the car in front of the school while his mother went with William to retrieve his clothes. William supposed they thought he might run away; it was no secret that he didn’t enjoy the prospect of spending time with them. She sat pensively on his bed, her hands folded delicately in her lap while William packed his books and clothing.

“Mum?” She looked up with a surprised expression on her pointed features. William rarely spoke with her, let alone in public. “Mum, do you know Professor Kingsley?”

Her pale cheeks became a bright pink again and she looked down to hide the glint in her eyes. “Well, you see Renauld and I – that’s Professor Kingsley, William, dear...”

“I’m not daft, Mum, just curious.”

She started at his interruption, but recovered quickly. “You shouldn’t talk back to your elders, William, it isn’t polite. Renauld and I were friends of a sort in school.”

“At Knox or after?”

“At Knox.” She looked around skittishly, as though someone might be listening. “He and I were something of an item before I met your father. Now hurry before he gets impatient.”

 

 

*****

 

 

‘ _He and I were something of an item._ ’ And she was something of a tart.

William has never had a great deal of respect for his mother and that was putting it mildly. He would have outright hated the woman for the way she acted like some flippant little schoolgirl, but he was too busy hating his father for being an outright bastard.

The drive from St. Christoff’s to the Bryce Estate was tense, silent, and unnerving. No one uttered a single word. Nothing. They just sat there for an hour, driving.

Father told him once that America and England were very different in many respects, and one of those is that Americans do a great deal of driving, while in England they prefer to take a train or the underground when in London. He personally loved to drive. He had a stylish one-passenger sport’s car that he would drive from the country estate to London and back again in the same day just because he thought it was such great fun. William had never really understood that, but then he had never really understood his father.

The front entrance to the Bryce Estate had a large wrought iron gate with a sensor. Father had a kind of electronic ID tag on the front of all his cars that permitted immediate access instead of him having to punch in a code. It was convenient for when it rained.

The drive from the front gate to the house was two minutes - two minutes of tree lined gravel road that looked like something out a beautiful movie during any season. But then the house was built by grandmother and grandfather, who had been popular actors in their day. William often wondered if he would have liked them. There were pictures of them in several rooms of the estate and they always looked kind, but perhaps that was just another act as well. As soon as the car had stopped he jumped out and immediately made his way into the house.

If nothing else, his grandparents had had taste. The front foyer was two stories tall, with a door on either side and a marble staircase directly across leading to an open balcony that overlooked both the foyer and conservatory on the other side. To the left of the front door was the library and to the right was a sitting room that could be used for more private conversations.

The conservatory was for entertaining. Under the balcony and behind the stairs were four double glass doors that lead into it - another two story monstrosity with windows that reached from floor to ceiling and showcased the manicured gardens and fountain. William hated the conservatory. It was far too bright in the morning and at night it was creepy. Access to the kitchen and dining room were through the conservatory, but he wanted to get to his bedroom as quickly as possible.

The second floor of the estate had four large bedrooms, two on either side of the balcony, that were considered the family rooms. The master suite was divided into two separate rooms, one for the parents and a very small room that could be used as either a study or a nursery.

William’s parent’s stayed to the right of the balcony, next to the back staircase leading directly into the kitchens, and William stayed in a room to the left which overlooked the front yard. When he’d been very young, his mother had put him in the one that faced the back gardens, insisting that it was a much better view and that he might as well make use of it. However, it turned out that William had an irrational fear of topiary animals and was moved once his parents tired of him waking them in the middle of the night because he was scared.

He’d never had many friends over, not just because his father was a tyrannical bastard, but because his home had never really felt like _his_ home. Even before primary school, when he spent nearly all his time in the country, it felt like he was a guest.

There had been one time when he’d had something of a rebellious fit and went into London, bought disturbing posters, spray paint, and other memorabilia and covered the walls in it, trying to block out the luxurious wall treatment that made it look like a hotel. His father had been more then a little upset. William was fairly certain that if he hadn’t hidden in the garden for a few hours after they’d found out, the man might have actually beaten him to a bloody pulp. Luckily he’d always been good at hiding.

Needless to say, there wasn’t much in the room that made it look as though he even lived there. It was gigantic, fitted only with a four-poster king sized bed, a desk with a computer, and two wardrobes that his mother kept filling with the latest fashions that William refused to wear. The carpet was a rich burgundy, the bedspread and curtains were both burnt orange (his mother’s tribute to masculinity). There had, at one time, been a very large picture hanging over the desk. William believed it had been a painting of one of his long dead ancestors, but it had fallen to his spray paint can so many years ago and he couldn’t even remember what it looked like. The bare walls were painted eggshell white and treated to look like aged Venetian plaster.

The third floor of the house contained six guest rooms around a large sitting area. William had considered moving onto the third floor at one point, the rooms were less expensively designed, so he would have been allowed to put up posters and decorations, the beds were smaller, but so were the rooms. It felt cozy and besides that he would have had an entire floor to himself. His mother and father had both firmly rebuffed the idea, saying family stayed in family rooms.

William finished his homework within the first two days and then resorted to reading books from the library and staring out his window at the snow now blanketing the countryside. When he got tired of reading the biographies and practical manuals that the library housed, he resorted to television. Luckily for William by the time he was getting really bored with it all there was only one day till the Christmas party and there were no lack of things to do.

“William!” He nearly fell off the edge of his bed, where he had been precariously perched, watching Hercules. “William!”

Damnit, it was his mother. Swinging his feet over the edge, William went to the intercom next to his door and hit the call button. “What, Mum?”

“I need you to assist me on the third floor.”

Brilliant, she wanted help airing out the guest rooms. There had been a time, well before William was born, when the house had been full of servants that went around airing out rooms and cooking meals and doing the shopping and the gardening and the laundry and just about anything else that needed doing. Unfortunately, when his grandmother passed, William’s father had dismissed them and his mother apparently could not find time during her social hours to even go up to the third floor, let alone keep it cleaned.

William went up the stairs and found her standing next to the intercom by the staircase. She hadn’t even opened the doors yet. “Now, William, we need to air out the rooms in case any of our guests need a place to sleep after the party and you’ll need to pick one for your friend.”

The only stairs leading to the third floor were the same back stairs that led to the kitchen, which meant that if Tom slept on the third floor William would have to not only walk across the balcony and face the eerily lit topiaries, but sneak past his parents’ bedroom if he wanted to see him. “Mum, that’s absolutely ridiculous. Why can’t he just stay in one of the family suites? They’re more impressive, anyway.”

She scoffed and opened the first door. “We have a guest floor and we might as well use it if we are having guests. Besides, I have six rooms to prepare up here and I am not going to do the one downstairs as well. That would be an entire day’s work by itself.”

William went in after her and picked up the neatly folded sheets, setting them on the floor outside the door to be taken downstairs for washing. “But he’ll be the only one up here. It would hardly be hospitable to put him on the third floor all alone when we have a room available on the second.”

“William, I am not going to waste an entire twenty four hours when I have other things I need do for the Christmas party and that is the end of it.”

She opened the window and began beating the curtains while he took a duster to the wardrobe. “ _I’ll_ air out the room.”

Covering her mouth for a dainty cough she turned to him with an over-exaggerated look of frustration. “All right, William, fine. Do it, and do it right, and he can sleep across from you.”

William hid his smug grin. If there was one thing he liked about his mother, it was her lack of conviction.

 

 

*****

 

 

The Christmas party was on the night of the twenty second. William spent the entire affair in a corner of the conservatory staring at the frozen over topiary dolphins leaping over the low trimmed hedges. That was the very reason that topiary gardens disturbed him. Dolphins leaping over a hedge? Couldn’t they have had them leaping over topiary waves? At least that would have made some semblance of sense.

Oh god, he’d just thought the word ‘semblance’ in a sentence and William was fairly sure he’d used it correctly.

His father may not have employed servants year round, but he was a firm believer in catering. William grabbed a martini glass off the tray of a passing waiter and took a sip, tilting the glass cordially in the man’s direction when he gave William a disgruntled look, and tried to hide a distasteful grimace. Bad martini, cute waiter.

He had been about to take a second sip when he saw his father gesturing for him to come join in a group of his business partners. This was the reason he was there. William spent the better part of the evening against the wall, until his father told him to come out and play, then he could go back to his room and amuse himself as he saw fit. The sooner he got this over with, the sooner he could go and masturbate to fantasies of naked football players. He had a thing for goalies.

The little group that had assembled consisted of his father; Mr. Jameson, a large man, who, in fact, looked even larger than the last time William seen him; Mr. Pearlman, a short and scrawny little man that twitched every time his name was said, as if he expected it to be followed by ‘Off with your head!’; and Mr. Dansberry, a much older man, who was entirely inscrutable and always looked at William like he was sizing him up with his beady eyes.

William held out his hand for each of them in turn, Dansberry first, who nodded and smiled, staring at him; Pearlman next, who gave an almost indistinguishable sound when he squeezed his hand a little harder than necessary; and Jameson third, who felt the need to point out that he was drinking alcohol.

“Why, is that a martini? Mr. Bryce, I wasn’t aware your son was old enough to be drinking.”

His father slapped his back, leaving a sting. “Of course, Jameson, he’s seventeen now, after all.”

Jameson looked at him, surprised, “Is he? The last time I saw him, he was thirteen. It’s amazing how much he’s grown since then.”

William hated being talked about in third person. “You, as well.” Let him stew over that for a while. His father set a hand on his shoulder and clenched it painfully, so William closed his mouth and smiled while Jameson tried to come up with something to say. William could have sworn Dansberry was holding back a chuckle.

After several minutes of meaningless conversation that he tried his best not to pay attention to, William gave a curt nod and plastered a fake grin on his face that could rival his father’s. “It was wonderful seeing you again, gentlemen, but I do believe it’s past my bedtime.”

His father’s upper lip twitched, but he said nothing as William swiveled on his feet and marched toward the stairs. He could hear his father apologizing in the wake of his footsteps and hurried up a little. He hadn’t hit William since he was seven, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t wanted to, William had just become very good at keeping out of his way.

As soon as he was safely behind a locked door, he pealed his coat off and threw himself onto the bed with an over exaggerated sigh. He didn’t bother to get up off the bed as he undid my pants and tugged them off desperately. Formal wear was always so constricting. Loosening the tie at his neck, William unbuttoned his shirt and flung his arms out on the bed while the cool air from the fan above his bed whipped over his bare chest.

His sigh of relief turned into a groan of frustration as his body started to react to the combination of fewer restrictions and cool wind in a way that he did not need it to. There were over thirty people in the house and the last thing he needed was a hard-on.

William curled up on his side and pulled the blankets over him, willing himself to go to sleep. With any luck he wouldn’t wake until they had left, until after Christmas, until Tom got there.

 

 

*****

 

 

The catering crew cleaned up after the party, did all the dishes, and took out the trash, but there were things that his mother insisted William help her with. He had to go back up to the third floor and fold down the sheets so that they could sit there, untouched for another year or two, and he had to help clean the two rooms that were used that evening, one of which reeked of sex. William had to wonder who had slept there, but couldn’t bring himself to ask.

Christmas sucked, precisely as much as he had predicted. Most days William woke when his mother called for him, but stayed in his room and took an early brunch in the kitchen, didn’t bother with a proper lunch, and ate a late dinner when they were getting ready for bed. Having to sit at the table and endure breakfast, lunch, and dinner with his parents was far too much for him to take without at least inward resentment.

The train station dropped off a few miles from the manor, but William’s parents refused to actually drive there to pick Tom up, although his father was perfectly willing to send a driver out in the freezing weather. So, instead of waiting anxiously for him to pull into the train station, William waited anxiously at the library window until he saw the taxi pulling up the drive.

By the time Tom got out of the car William was already clinging to him with relief. “Thank God, I was two steps from throwing myself out my window.”

Tom laughed, but looked up at the three story manor with wide eyes. “You on the third floor?”

“Second.”

“Well, good thing I got here, then. You might have broken a leg and died of exposure.”

William resisted slapping Tom’s arm, mostly because it would have been childish, but also because his father and mother are standing at the door watching them. Instead, he wrapped one arm around Tom’s heavily coated shoulder and held the other one out towards the manor. “Welcome, to the Bryce Estate.”

“Estate?”

“Yes, estate. Established by my grandparents in the early nineteen twenties and brought into the modern age by my father. Speaking of which...”

William had been walking him towards the door and Tom held a hand out to Mr. Bryce, “Thank you for inviting me to stay the week.”

His father was duly impressed with Tom’s manners and smiled amiably at him. “We’re welcome to have you, Tom. Adrianna was beginning to doubt our son had any friends at all.”

Tom’s mouth tensed defensively, but before he could say anything William moved his grip from Tom’s shoulder to his upper arm and began leading him into the house. “How long is the trip from where you live, anyway? I’ll bet you’re starving.”

 

 

*****

 

 

“Your mother was involved with one of your professors?!” Tom had been, for lack of a better word, flabbergasted.

They’d spent a few minutes in the kitchen, making sandwiches and finding the packaged cookies William knew his mother was hording, and then made their way up to his room with Tom gaping openly at everything he saw on the way. They decided to eat on the bed, mostly because it would infuriate William’s parents, but also because it was much more comfortable than the floor.

William had been telling him about how his horrible Professor Kingsley was not only human, but apparently had been seeing his mother. Tom, of course, did not see the tragedy in all this and instead sat on the bed chewing his sandwich for a few moments before saying, “What an amazing coincidence,” and continued to chew.

“You could be more supportive.”

“Supportive how?” Tom set the half eaten sandwich on his plate and took a drink of milk to clear his throat. “Are you upset for your mother’s virtue, because I honestly didn’t think you gave a toss about her?”

“No, I don’t rightly know what I’m upset about. It just seems... wrong, is all.”

Tom lay back on the bed and motioned him over. William started to sit next to him, but Tom grabbed his hips and pulled him onto his lap. “Let’s analyze this. You’re either upset because of your mother or this professor, right?”

William nodded and then pressed his hips down, enjoying the slight friction. Tom stifled a moan. “Stop that, it’s distracting.”

“You put me here.”

“I am trying to help you come to terms with a dilemma. Now, if it isn’t your mother then it has to be this Professor Kingsley, only you told me he hates you.”

“He does hate me.”

“Do you hate him?” And oh, how William hated it when Tom was insightful. When William failed answer, Tom took that as a no. “So, you like him.”

As much as William wanted to adamantly deny it, he couldn’t help thinking about those dreams he’d been having just before midterms, the ones where Kingsley... damn, he was getting hard and Tom had noticed, because he was grinning. “Well, I see I’ve hit a nerve.”

Without warning, Tom flipped him onto his back and leaned half over William, one of his legs hooked around to hold him down, which would have annoyed William if he weren’t so busy enjoying the way Tom’s leg accidentally brushed against his half erect cock. “I don’t like him, Tom, but I did have some of the strangest dreams.”

Tom’s grin turned wicked and he was almost hesitant as he put his hand over William’s cock and started pressing into it. “Those kinds of dreams?”

William groaned and pushed up into what was quickly becoming a caress. “Yes, those kinds of dreams.”

Tom pressed himself against William’s thigh and he was surprised to find that Tom’s situation was very similar to his own. Well, perhaps not _that_ surprised. “I should be jealous, you know, but I’m not. I’m actually incredibly turned on.”

William bit back any lingering embarrassment and reached up to wrap his fingers in Tom’s hair and pull him down into a kiss. It was meant to be chaste, but neither of them had the patience. William flipped them over to lay himself on top and pressed his hips over Tom’s slightly smaller ones, moaning into his mouth.

Tom bucked up against him and William pushed his tongue past half open lips. They only managed a few fumbled thrusts before their inexperience caught up with them and they came, collapsing on top of each other, and lay panting for a few moments before they started laughing.

Tom had wrapped his arms around William’s back at some point, but loosened his grip and let his hands drop to the bed in exhaustion. “That was... incredible.”

William lifted up onto one elbow and leered down at him with a predatory gaze. “Really? I was incredible?”

Tom laughed a little harder, but it quickly died into a chuckle. “Don’t go getting cocky on me, now.” His hand slid down to William’s limp penis and William smiled lazily.

“William! Tom!”

They jumped apart violently. Well, William jumped away and promptly fell onto the floor with a flourish of waving arms and indignant yelps. Tom started, but managed not to make an arse of himself. Bloody intercom.

“Boys, dinner will be ready in an hour. Your father and I will be expecting you.”

Bloody Mother.

William sat back up and looked at Tom who was leaning over the side of the bed. They would be lucky if they had enough time to get the rid of the flush in their cheeks, take a bath, and get on clean clothes before dinner. On the plus side, Christmas vacation was looking up.

 

 

*****

 

 

“So this is what you do all day?”

“Yes.”

“You watch the telly, read books, and play solitaire with cards that have...” he turned the cards they’d been using over and raised an eyebrow “...half naked ladies on them.”

William blushed and moved one of his rows over. “What was I supposed to say? ‘Why, yes, father, I appreciate the cards, but do you mind if I trade them in for blokes, because that’s what really interests me.’ He’d have skinned me alive.”

Tom grinned and moved an ace to the top. “I suppose he would have. He isn’t the most affectionate sort, your father. In fact, I’d go so far as to say he’s a bit detached.”

They had been at the manor for a little over twenty-four hours and William’s parents had both gone out of the way to stay out of theirs. His father had left to go back to London and his mother had busied herself in her room, doing whatever it was she did in there all day. During the summer she spent her spare time tending the gardens, but she couldn’t very well go pruning the roses in the snow.

“We could take a walk outside and get some fresh air.”

“In the dead of winter? Besides, the paths are likely frozen over. You’ll slip one step outside the door. I know, I’ve tried.” William looked up from the cards and smiled in what he considered to be his most devious way. “Come back during the summer and I’ll take you on a walk. I’ll even take you into the west wing.”

Tom raised an eyebrow. “West wing?”

“Mh hm. We’re in what used to be the family side, or east wing. The third floor guest rooms that I showed you used to be the servants’ quarters. The bells are still in the corner of each room. When grandmother died, father closed off the west wing. He didn’t even bother to update its facilities.”

“Why not go now?”

“There’s no heater, it’ll be just about as cold as the gardens. Not to mention covered in several inches of dust and cobwebs.”

Tom shivered at the idea and sat up, stretching his arms over his head. “I have no idea how you manage. I’d have died of boredom by now if I were you.”

He pulled his jumper off over his head and William raised an appreciative eyebrow. Tom leaned forward and pressed his mouth near William’s ear. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

“Hm.” He’d wanted to say something far more eloquent. Something like ‘Do tell,’ or ‘Have you really?’ but the feel of Tom’s breath so close to his ears had made him remember why he was there, not to mention that his hand on William’s thigh was very distracting.

“I was just wondering exactly what you had in mind for the next few days.”

William’s breath hitched as Tom unzipped his trousers and slipped a hand inside. “I hadn’t...”

“Hadn’t...?” His hand caressed a few times over William’s underwear before slipping inside them.

William moaned aloud at the feel of soft, cool fingers brushing over his bare erection. “Hadn’t really thought beyond getting you here.”

Tom pushed him slowly onto his back and crawled on top of him, kissing William softly while his hand pulled William’s cock out and began slowly working up and down it. “Really? Because I thought about it all the time. I thought about touching you,” he squeezed a little harder, “kissing you,” he ran his tongue over William’s lips, “tasting you.”

William was about to ask what he meant by ‘tasting,’ when Tom kissed him hard on the mouth, suppressing any other thoughts. He kissed his neck, and then his collar, and his chest, and down his abdomen, and William suddenly had a very good idea of what he meant by tasting and he didn’t think he’d last long for it, either. Not that he wasn’t willing to give it a try.

He stared at Tom, open mouthed, as he ran a tongue up the underside of William’s cock, leaving a cool, wet trail behind it. The tongue did a circle around the head before Tom’s lips wrapped around it and William lost the ability to keep his head up or his mouth shut. A low moan pulled from William’s throat as he felt Tom’s lips move down his shaft, engulfing his cock in wet warmth unlike anything he’d yet experienced.           

One of his hands involuntarily shot out and pressed itself against the back of Tom’s head, but he refrained from actively gripping it. In response, Tom took him deeper, until the head of his cock pressed against his throat. He wrapped a hand around the base and slowly began sucking, moving his mouth and hand up and down.

William lasted all of five minutes, six if he was being optimistic, but it was longer than he had thought he would. Tom swallowed what he could and what he couldn’t manage dripped from the corners of his mouth and onto William’s thighs and the carpet.

He crawled back up and lay again William’s side, panting slightly. There was a long moment of silence, then, “You taste good.”

Leaning over, William kissed him, hesitantly deepening it and moving his tongue around the warm, wet confines of Tom’s mouth. He tasted a bitter sweet foreign substance that had to be his own cum before pulled back. He wasn’t really sure what he was doing, but finally gave a half grin and started to mimic the way Tom had kissed down his body.

Tom sighed as William got lower, a contented, pleased sigh. “You don’t have to.”

In response, William dragged his tongue up Tom’s erection and over the head, tasting the bitter precome. He tentatively put it in his mouth, taking a moment to adjust to the feeling of having a cock pressed heavily against his tongue before he began to move over it.

It was awkward, to say the least – William wasn’t sure how hard to suck, or when to use his tongue, and he gagged every time it got close to the back of his throat – but Tom didn’t seem to mind. Other than a few comments about watching the teeth, he seemed to enjoy himself and pulled William up at the last minute, kissing him while he came over his hand.

They lay on the floor beside each other for several minutes before Tom laughed. “William, our game is absolutely cocks up.”

William looked down at their feet and saw the cards strewn in every direction. “We could always collect them up and go another round.”

Tom pulled him into a kiss and laid his head on William’s shoulder. “Not right now, we can’t. I’m absolutely knackered.”

Laughing into his hair, William let it fall into a comfortable silence. He didn’t think he had any particularly strong feelings for Tom, but then he hoped Tom didn’t have any particularly strong feelings for him. He liked Tom as a friend, and if they could add sex to that friendship then so much the better, but he didn’t want to hurt him.

“Tom?”

“Wazit?”

William chuckled at the slurred exhaustion in his voice. “Tom, are we more than friends?”

Tom sat half up and looked him in the eye for a moment before smiling reassuringly. “Not unless you want to be. Not to say I would mind, but...” H trailed off and laid his head back on William’s chest.

What was it that Tanya always called it when she had sex with random friends for no particular reason other than her own needs? Friends with benefits. William slipped his arm around Tom’s shoulder and squeezed slightly. He liked that.

Friends with benefits.


	5. Chapter 5

Tom left two days before William and their goodbye was tense, as both of William’s parents were standing at the door watching. They planned to write each other as often as possible, although they would have to be careful with what they said, because of Father Mathis.

William quite literally sulked around the manor those last two days; eating little to nothing and staring blankly at the telly. He couldn’t even be sure of what he watched. Before the taxi came to take him to the station, he made sure that his room was in perfect order - bed made, sheets freshly washed that morning, clothes hung in rows by color and formality - the object of his obsessive behavior being that if he gave his parents nothing to complain about then they would have no reason to refuse when he asked if Tom could spend a few weeks of the summer with them.

The train ride was unbearable. He’d put all his homework and winter reading into his case so that he could look over it on the way to school and found that, to his dismay, his essays reeked and he couldn’t remember hardly a word of what he’d read. He was entirely screwed and he could already imagine the look of sheer satisfaction of Professor Kingsley’s face every time his red pen marked into it.

Damn. He was going to have to work extra hard to catch up over the next few months. William didn’t want to give his father any reason to deny his request when he made it. That meant decent grades and being on his best behavior; well, better behavior, his father wouldn’t be expecting miracles.

William did his revisions on the train, but he didn’t really think there was much of anything that he could do to truly improve his situation. By the time he arrived at the station and found a prearranged taxi driver waiting for him, it was getting late in the day and he was too exhausted to really worry about an essay that was fairly well unsalvageable anyway.

Emerson and the others were in the dorm room, talking about winter conquests, so William collapsed on the bed and mumbled something about being too tired to discuss it right then. In all honestly there was nothing he wanted more than to tell them absolutely everything. He wanted to boast and brag and do everything that they were doing only about Tom, which he didn’t think would be very acceptable. Instead, he would have to tell them that nothing eventful happened and he really wasn’t up to that just yet. So, he laid down and stayed awake for several hours thinking about how much he was looking forward to the summer and exactly what the consequences of ‘coming out’ would be.

 

 

*****

 

 

Professor Kingsley looked utterly dismayed when he returned William’s essay with a check minus. William couldn’t help the cheeky grin that spread over his face in his surprise, which should have landed him his first detention of the semester. He was more than a little shocked when all he got was a scowl from Professor Kingsley before he continued passing out the rest of the papers.

Father Mathis called him to the office and asked about him vacation, to which he refrained from explaining how he had learned to give a passable blow job; and he asked how William’s mother was, to which William refrained from saying that she was still the same frigid cow that she had been a few weeks ago; and he asked if William knew what had happened with his father, to which he had to bite his tongue to keep from saying that it was normal and that his father was generally an obtuse prick. Instead, William told him that the country air had done him some good, that his mother was well, and that he’d no idea what had come over his father except that he and Professor Kingsley had apparently known each other some time back. It seemed to please Father Mathis and he got away with only a short lecture on the evils of allowing your anger to get the better of you and how resenting someone would ultimately lead to your own downfall.

The routine of everyday life at St. Christoff’s became once again stifling. The snow melted on the grounds and, although it was still chilly outside, he could at least practice lacrosse with his teammates.

Emerson’s constant talk about girls was starting to feel like a hammer beating a nail into his head. It wasn’t that he begrudged his friend the right to talk about it, but having to pretend to agree to it all was becoming a little much. He found himself spending more time alone, and more time thinking silently to himself even when his friends were there.

He was fairly sure that it was all this alone time that led to him wanting to talk to Professor Kingsley. It sounded absurd to him even then, but he kept hearing his mother’s voice - ‘we were something of an item’ - and it bothered William in a way he couldn’t explain. He just wanted to ask what she had meant and he honestly thought he had a better chance of getting straight answers from Professor Kingsley than from her.

Unfortunately, Professor Kingsley did not seem to share the same need to talk that William did. In fact, he had been keeping William at arms length, trying his best not to single him out, not even for reprimands. Instead, he all but ignored William, which made it that much more difficult to even think about approaching him. Of course, what would he have said, anyway? ‘Excuse me, Professor, but did you ever shag my mum?’

No, better to wait; see if he forgot whose son William was.

A month into the semester they had their first lacrosse game and won by a large margin, something the others said was no big deal because they always won against that school. William actually played in the game and the exertion of having been out on the field was exhilarating. He stayed after the team had left in order to do some cool down exercises. By the time he went into the locker rooms they were blessedly empty - blessedly because he really, really wanted to masturbate and didn’t think he could go through the strain of worrying about being caught again - at least, he’d thought they were empty.

He’d just finished pulling his shirt off when a noise to his left made William jump clear out of his skin. He fell onto the bench in favor of over it and found himself staring at a very naked Baun, covered only in a loosely slung towel. It wasn’t exactly the kind of thing he’d expected to see. Not unwelcome, he supposed... no, very unwelcome, about as unwelcome as his suddenly stirring loins.

William took several steadying breaths. “Baun, what are you still doing here?”

Baun grinned at him, shrugging, but didn’t come any closer. “Well, I thought I’d congratulate you. That was a good game you played out there.”

He smiled back, as genuinely as possible considering he was trying to hide a hard on. “Thank you, but I really should be taking my shower. Dinner is in...”

William trailed off as Baun stepped forward and his towel fell to the floor. He didn’t move to pick it up. “I was just seeing if you’d like to do a little after game celebrating?”

“Celebrating?” His voice cracked like a preteen. There was just no way that he could mean what William thought he meant. None.

“I saw you staring, before winter break.”

Okay, maybe he did.

“What of it? I was just... surprised. Not used to a bunch of blokes running around starkers is all.”   That might have been convincing if his voice hadn’t spiked at the word starkers.

Baun gave a deep little chuckle. “Well, when you decide if it was surprise or something else, you let me know.”

And he left. He turned around, his bare arse to William, and left, like he hadn’t just... hadn’t just propositioned someone in the boy’s locker room. It was absurd, people didn’t go around propositioning each other in locker rooms. Or did they? It was just wrong and it was... an incredible turn on.

 

 

*****

 

 

The idea of messing around with Baun was both intriguing and perplexing. Baun wasn’t unattractive; in fact, with his clothes off he was quite appealing, but then there was the nagging feeling that if William were going to go snogging someone else, he should probably tell Tom first.

There were only two ways to do that. He could either call him, which would be tricky since he hadn’t been given phone privileges that week, or he could write a letter to him, which was be even trickier because Father Mathis, of course, read the mail. In the end William decided it would be better to try and sneak in a phone call.

He waited till noon the next day, when the teachers and students would be gathered in the dining hall for lunch, and stepped out early while Professor Kingsley wasn’t watching. Father Mathis would most likely ignore him, but with his luck the English Professor would see it as a prime opportunity to start paying attention to him again. When William was sure no one had followed behind him, he made his way down the hall to the communal phone.

The vaulted ceilings made the hall resound like an echo chamber and he was terrified the loud clanging that bounced off the walls when he picked up the receiver would attract attention, but no one popped around any corners to ask what he was up to. He dialed as softly as possible, but still cringed with every beep that he was sure the entire school could hear.

He didn’t recognize the voice on the other end offhand, but they seemed to know who Tom was and set off to find him. William stood perfectly still while he waited, trying desperately to keep from shifting the hard soles of his shoes on the harder floors.

“Tom speaking.”

William cupped his hand over the receiver to try and muffle his voice. “Tom, I have to ask you something.”

“Who is this?”

His eyes rolled of their own accord. “William.”

“Oh.” He paused for a moment. “Why are you whispering?”

“I’m not supposed to be on the phone.”

“What did you need?”

And suddenly, William was completely dumb struck. He had no idea how to ask Tom whether it was alright for him to make out with a boy on his lacrosse team and he wasn’t even entirely sure why asking him had been so important now that he came to it.

“Um, well, one of the guys on my team kind of... made a pass at me.”

“Really?!” William could actually hear the grin in his voice. “Is he cute?”

“That is not the point!”

He chuckled into receiver. “What is then?”

“Well you... I mean to say, do you think it’s a good idea to take him up on it?”

“I don’t see why not. Who is he?”

William thought he heard someone walking and clammed up for a moment, but a door closed somewhere above him, so he was fairly sure it was safe to continue. “The captain.”

“The big burly muscular one?”

“Yes, that one.” He was blushing to the tips of his ears now. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea, after all.

“He was kind of cute and built like a rock.”

“I’m well aware of that.”

“Not to mention well hung.”

“Tom...”

“I only got to see him clothed and from a distance, mind you, but even that was fairly impressive. Thank God for gym shorts, right?”

“Tom!” William stopped breathing as his voice echoed around him. Yelling probably wasn’t very strategic. Perhaps he should write that down as it didn’t seem he could remember it on his own.

 

“Yes?”

 

“Do you think I should.”

 

Tom chuckled again and lowered his voice a little. “Go for it, stud, and let me know how it went. I’m dying for wank material over here.”

“Perv.”

“Cheers, love.”

He hung up the phone and turned around to run back to his dorm for his books - turned and found himself face first in Professor Kingsley freshly pressed shirt.

 

 

*****

 

 

Part of William wanted very much to talk to Professor Kingsley during detention. The other part thought that might not be the safest route to go. Both parts made the unanimous decision to beat a hasty retreat when they saw the scowl of his Professor’s face that evening, which left him to fend for himself with neither courage nor a brain.

So, instead of talking to his professor and finding out exactly what his mother had meant, William ended up scrubbing the two biology labs for three hours. Not that he had anything against biology, but there was something to be said about running a wet clothe over a seemingly clean surface and having it come up a disturbing shade of pink. However, that was not the worst of it. Apparently, having spent three hours listening to Professor Kingsley bark at him for his cleaning technique had done nothing to deter his sub-conscious, which was determined to drive him insane.

William went to sleep that night cursing Kingsley and woke up with a raging hard-on and memories of a dream that had been much more graphic than pre-midterms, and this time he couldn’t tell himself it was exam stress because there were no exams. Instead, he had to fess up to the idea that he found Professor Kingsley attractive. Not just his voice either. As William sat in class that morning he actually found himself falling into a daze staring at the man. He watched him walk around the room, his hazel eyes scanning the text he was reading, but they weren’t just hazel; no, now that William looked closer, there was more blue in them, leaving them almost grey.

And there were other things he noticed, as well. When William had first arrived at St. Christoff’s he’d thought the Kingsley was lanky, but now he knew exactly what word suited him best. Lean. His forearm could have been chiseled. William wondered if it had anything to do with walking up and down those stairs.

Then there was his long, dark hair that he pulled back into a tight little pony tail at the nape of his neck, white sprinkled in at the temples. It should have made him look older, but William didn’t think it did. Not that he was thinking of actually making any kind of a play, but Professor Kingsley was definite wank material.

Of course, wank material reminded him that after almost two weeks he still hadn’t gotten up the nerve to approach Baun. He kept telling himself that it wasn’t because he lacked courage, it was because there just hadn’t been a good opportunity to speak with him alone.

In truth? William was chicken shite. Something that was brought to his attention by Tom in a very short letter:

 

_Dear William,_

_Since I have yet to receive a letter from you, I’ll_   
_have to assume that you have not gone through_   
_with it._

_Chicken shite._

_You’d better do something soon, or I’ll go_   
_completely off in my boredom._

_Tom_

 

William wrote a quick letter back, declaring that he was not chicken shite, he was just taking my time. Unfortunately, in his haste to defend his honor he’d forgotten that Father Mathis would be reading the mail and that most of what he’d written had not fallen into the category of ‘discrete.’

“Dear Tom, I am not chicken shite, I am taking my time, and if you’re so desperate for something to toss off to, I’m sure you can find something in Tanya’s stash. She hordes it like a Catholic Priest. William.” Father Mathis set the letter down in front of him and folded his hands on the desk expectantly. “Would you care to explain?”

 _No, not really_. “I didn’t mean to insult priests like that, Father Mathis. It was a joke and a mistake that I will not make again.”

“That is not what I meant.” _Damn_. “Why, exactly, is he accusing you of being a coward?”

“Oh, well, that... you see, it’s rather a bit embarrassing to tell the truth.” _Think. Think. Think_. _Oh_! “It’s my father. He’s not the easiest person to get along with and, well, I’m supposed to ask him if Tom can visit this summer and I’m a bit anxious about it. My grades aren’t as high as he’d like, I keep getting detention, and he wasn’t very pleased with what you had to say right before winter break, so...” William let it trail off, hoping that would be enough.

Father Mathis sat back, scrutinizing him with one raised eyebrow. “I do admit that your father didn’t exactly strike me as the most paternal man. What about your mother?”

Now William was in his element. “Besides not being the one in charge of those decisions, she’s a bit distant at the best of times. I don’t do a lot of talking with either of them.”

“And the reference to wank material?”

That was easy enough. “Another joke, Father Mathis. Tom was a bit impressed with the idea that there was an adult bookstore in town – Em... a friend took me to it – and he asked if I would send him some. I’m not particular to that kind of thing, so I’ve been putting it off.”

“I was not aware that one of those was anywhere near this school.”

Double damn. Emerson was going to kill him. “It’s in the back room of a small shop. I really don’t remember the name.”

He was silent for a bit. “Do you intend to accommodate your friend?”

“Oh, no, of course not!” Father Mathis looked surprised. “I mean, that kind of thing isn’t proper, is it? And there wouldn’t be much chance of Tom being allowed over this summer if I were caught with something like that.”

“Not the right reason, but the right result, I suppose. Pornography is evil. It flaunts temptation in our face and degrades women.”

William had to bite his tongue from adding ‘and men, if it’s under my bed.’ “Yes, Father Mathis.”

“Last of all, William, there’s the comment about Tanya’s stash?”

“Tanya’s the girl I was caught with back at Knox.”

He nodded his head as if that explained everything. William was relieved, but also a little perturbed. Just because he knew the girl was engaging in inappropriate activities with one student, didn’t mean she was a smut hording whore. She was, but that wasn’t the point.

“I will be writing to your father tomorrow in regards to how impressed I am with your improvement.” William looked up in shock. “I assume that will be of some assistance?”

He opened his mouth to say something, but wasn’t exactly sure what, so he closed it and nodded instead. Father Mathis motioned toward the door and he said a quick thank you before leaving.

He was going to write to William’s father about his improvements? He supposed he had improved some. At least, he wasn’t serving so many detentions as before, but that was hardly his doing. Most of the detentions last semester hadn’t even really been earned. There were a few times he could have held his tongue and didn’t, but other than that...

What was worse was that the lack of detention was actually bothering him. Willliam didn’t like the way Professor Kingsley ignored him. In fact, it was closer to avoidance. Unless he’d done something really out of line Professor Kingsley did his best to leave him alone, which left William with the odd feeling that he’d done something wrong.

Father Mathis had pulled him out of Computer Science and he managed to return just in time for homework assignments before Professor Preston shoed them off to English. Sometimes William hated his luck.

 

 

*****

 

 

A week later they played a game against another private school that William hadn’t even bothered to get the name of. He’d decided to stay late in the locker room to see if Baun would approach him again. He didn’t really expect him to, but William was far too nervous to do it himself. As luck would have it, Baun did not have the same problem.

“William?”

He looked up from where he was sitting on the bench, still in his uniform and tried not to gawk at Baun’s naked form, wrapped, once again, in only a towel.

“Have you had any time to think about my proposition?”

Baun tilted his head slightly at the word ‘proposition’ and William blushed deeply. “I... yes.”

A slow grin split his captain’s face. “And?”

“And I think I may be interested. If you’re serious that is.” He added the last part as an after thought, because William wasn’t sure what else to say.

Baun walked over to him in slow, calculated steps, probably very aware of his nervousness. “I was very serious.” He straddled the bench across from him, his towel falling off in the process, and held his face close William’s. “Are you?”

It looked like Tom had been right after all, and William couldn’t help but be a little intimidated. He had to gulp to get his voice working. After a moment, he found his voice and gave a muted “Yes,” before he found himself on the receiving end of a very rough, very deep kiss.

It took several seconds for it to register and by the time it did William already had a mouth full of tongue. Not that he was disappointed, it was a very talented tongue, after all. He kissed back, but found that he was perfectly fine with allowing Baun to take the lead, in fact, he was relieved.

In his limited experience with Tom the lead had been give and take. Tom was smaller than him, so he felt compelled to try and be at least moderately dominant, but Tom also knew more than him and William tended to defer to experience. This was entirely different. Not only was Baun much larger than William, but he seemed to know exactly what he was doing.

He reached a hand under William’s shirt and wrapped it around his waist, pulling him along the bench and between his legs. William lifted his legs up and draped them over Baun’s thighs so that he could get closer and had to bite back a moan as Baun’s cock pressed against his own. He looked down to see the head of Baun’s swollen erection staring up at him.

William was about to pull back and lower his head when Baun began removing his shirt, slowly pulling it over his head before latching onto his left nipple with lips and teeth. He’d never imagined that a man’s nipples could be that sensitive, but when Baun’s teeth brushed against it, William hissing in pleasure. He was becoming increasingly aware of every physical stimulus, from Baun’s mouth, to his cock, to the large hands that were running down William’s back and over his hips.

Baun bit gently at the other nipple, sending electric shivers down him spine. He’d liked that. Baun bit again, a little harder this time. William really, really liked that. He liked the edge of pain riding alongside the pleasure. Grabbing his face, William kissed him furiously, trying to pour his need and want into it.

William should have just said something. It would have been much easier. As it was, Baun grabbed at his shorts, pulling them off as he pushed him onto his back. Baun leaned over him and kissed him again. William closed his eyes, but opened them when a wet finger pressed urgently into his ass, stretching it in a way that he didn’t actively not like. In lieu of voicing his surprise, however, William continued to press his tongue against Baun’s. The hand on the back of his head moved to do something else that he couldn’t quite see.

Looking back, it seems entirely obvious what Baun wanted, but the phrase ‘lost in the moment’ would be the easiest way to explain it. With his mouth quite literally devouring William’s, their heated cocks rubbing firmly together, and Baun’s finger giving him the strangest shivers up and through his body, he couldn’t very well think about anything, let alone what Baun intended to do to him.

His first inclination was when Baun removed the finger, making him moan from the sudden loss, he had reason to pause when Baun lifted one of his thighs up, but what really brought it home was when Baun pulled his hips back from William, moving his cock to pressing the head of it against William’s arse. Baun gave less than a second of pause before pushing into him. A strange noise escaped from the back of William’s throat, the kind of noise that could only be replicated by a combination of shock and pain.

His arms had been wrapped behind Baun’s back, caressing his shoulders, now they gripped tightly as Baun kept pushing, slowly sinking further in. There was a dull, cramping pain in his gut and a sharper, more acute pain in his lower back, but those were minor compared to the stretching, sting in his ass. By the time Baun stopped moving William could feel the heavy weight of balls lying against his ass and he let out the breath he had been inadvertently holding, “God!”

Baun moved a little, just enough to elicit a yelp of pain from William. Stopping, Baun looked down at him, cheeks pink and flushed. “You all right?”

William shook his head, “Hold still.” After several seconds, though, the pain dissipated some and he decided that getting it over with was probably a better idea than sitting there with a cock up his ass for an indefinite period of time.

He nodded once and lifted his head to bury it in Baun’s shoulder as the cock was slowly pulled out. When Baun pushed it back in, he sped up somewhat and, much to William’s relief, it didn’t feel quite so bad. In fact, the more Baun moved, the more he liked it – in a masochistic sort of way, because, yes, it hurt, but it also felt incredible. There were even a few times when Baun hit something that made shocks of pleasure run the entire course of William’s spine and settle happily at the base of his skull and in his balls.

Despite the nagging pain and discomfort of having his ass thoroughly fucked, it wasn’t long before his balls tighten and he exploded violently over both their abdomens. William couldn’t hold back the deep groan that tore from his throat as he came and his muscles tightened painfully around Baun’s cock.

It wasn’t more than a few quick thrusts later that Baun pulled out, spilling himself on William’s legs and ass as he came. William let his head fall back onto the bench and took several deep breaths. Baun sat back, his legs draping over the sides of the bench, staring down at him in open disbelief. “Bryce, had you...” he stopped for a moment and the disbelief turned into a wicked grin. “Had you ever done that before?”

William narrowed his eyes, but couldn’t get up the energy to lie. “No.” After a few moments of silence he found myself chuckling at what Tom would say about all of it. He’d lost his virginity in the locker room of an all-boy’s Catholic school.

By then Baun had stood up and was wrapping the towel around his waist again. “You alright, then?”

He nodded, forcing himself up with a winch. “Yeah, just thinking about how horribly cliché this all is.”

Baun smiled and reached over to rub William’s head in a kind of brotherly affection before heading towards the showers. After a moment, William decided that sounded like a good idea and went to follow him, taking slow, rather painful steps.

It hadn’t been the most mind-blowing experience of his life, but he didn’t regret it. In fact, he was looking forward to trying it with Tom during the summer.


	6. Chapter 6

It had taken days for the cramping in his gut and the throbbing pain in the base of his spine to go away, and going to the bathroom had stung as well. Of course, Baun had excused him from practice with a knowing wink and he’d been left to sit in bed, feigning stomach trouble and having nothing better to do than homework and think.

Thinking, however, led to thoughts about the certain someone that had been nagging at both his brain and libido for the past few months - Professor Kingsley. So, he really couldn’t help but be grateful the morning he woke up and the pain had dissipated to almost nothing. William was so relieved, that for a short time he was even able to forget all about the sultry English Professor and go back to his normal routine of classes and lacrosse practice.

The weekend after it happened he wrote a five-page letter to Tom, filling both sides of the paper with detailed descriptions; Emerson even had a suggestion on how to get the letter mailed without Father Mathis seeing it. As it turned out the little old lady that ran the candy shop in town was more than willing to take a few letters to the post with her own.

Everything seemed to slow to a nice normal crawl for a few months. Baun hadn’t minded that William wasn’t interested in having anal sex with him again; he’d been perfectly fine keeping it at mutual masturbation and blowjobs. Not that they’d done that very frequently. The more often they engaged in sexual activities, the more likely they were to get caught and since Baun was graduating that year he thought it best to keep ‘caught copulating with a male student’ off his transcript. It might have hindered his chances of getting a scholarship.

It wasn’t until less than a month before summer holidays that William began to get itchy again. Part of it was summer fever, an affliction that occurred when one was so excited about the upcoming vacation they couldn’t concentrate. Seeing as he’d never had anything to look forward to during the summer, he had never had this problem, but Emerson assured him that’s what it was.

The other problem was that the closer summer got, the closer exams got, and the closer exams got, the more he had to study, and the more he had to study, the more anxious he became, and with that anxiety came the dreams. This time, however, the dreams had not stopped at spanking. There had been one involving whips, one involving whipped cream, there had been a few that involved fingers, and there had been one that involved a sex toy that William had never even thought of using in that way.

So, overall, it wasn’t much of a surprise that a week before taking exams, he blew up. Not just in some small way, either. No, William quite literally exploded in his Professor’s face. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Professor Kingsley for weeks, whether it was the nightly wet dreams, just listening to him class, or the constant mental reminder that he was ignoring him. At that point William really would have preferred being yelled at rather than let him put his head down on his desk and say nothing about it.

He did manage to contain himself until the practice exam. Professor Kingsley had passed it out and instructed them to leave the room when they were finished. Unfortunately, William couldn’t seem to concentrate. The dream the night before had been more than a little disturbing. It had started out with the normal disciplinary tact, turned a little fluffy, and then, right in the middle of what had to have been a brilliant snog, he’d turned into his mother.

So, it wasn’t hard to understand that his mind kept flipping between his mother saying they had been an item and his thoughts on Professor Kingsley outright ignoring him.

He looked down at the paper and tried to focus.

_Mary was the heroin and the antagonist in this short story._ _Her refusal to..._

Why was Professor Kingsley ignoring him, anyway? Did he think it would go away? Did he think he would forget?

_...listen to what her friends and family told her about Mr. Hill was both an act of bravery and stubbornness. Her family..._

Well, if he thought that was going to work, he could just think again. William was not letting this drop.

_...insisted that he was a scoundrel, citing their own personal experiences..._

Was it so much to ask of him? He just wanted to know about Kingsley’s relationship with William’s mother. Apparently he’d had one, so what, was he ashamed?

_...while her friends passed along the rumors that were circulating around the village regarding his..._

Or maybe it wasn’t his mother. He had looked at his father as though he might do William the favor of slaughtering him. Painfully.

_...less than discrete past. She..._

And for that matter...

Damn! William nearly threw his pen in frustration. Why couldn’t he just focus? A little voice in the back of his head echoed, ‘Why can’t he just look at me?’ but he ignored it in favor of scratching a few more words onto his page.

By the time Professor Kingsley told everyone to put their pens down William had less than half the page filled and what he had managed to write really wasn’t worth the ink it was written in. All he’d managed to do was become so agitated by the situation that he’d decided to do something incredibly stupid. At least he had the good sense to wait until the class had emptied, otherwise it would have started a fantastic rumor, because even William was aware that his pouting lip and the annoyed tone of his voice was very similar to a jilted lover.

“Why are you ignoring me?”

Professor Kingsley had been sitting at his desk and though William was sure he’d noticed he was still there, he hadn’t bothered to look up until William spoke. The Professor set his pen aside slowly. “Excuse me?”

William’s courage, once again, had beaten a hasty retreat, but had left him at a very bad time. He couldn’t very well back out now. “Ever since I got back from winter holiday you’ve been doing your best to avoid me. Why?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He looked back down, but William was recklessly agitated and slammed his hands on the desk to get his attention. “Bullocks! You know exactly what I’m talking about. Is it because you snogged my mum? Because I hardly see what that has to do with how you treat me and...”

“It has nothing to do with your mother, Mr. Bryce. Leave my classroom.”

“No! If it doesn’t have to do with my mother, then what?”

He stood up and glared. “Leave.”

“I’m not leaving till you explain yourself.”

“I have nothing to explain.”

Professor Kingsley had started edging slowly around his desk, but William didn’t notice. “Oh, yes you do. First you can’t get enough of having me in your classroom and now you can’t wait to get me out. Why?”

“Mr. Bryce...”

“No, I’m not leaving. If it isn’t to do with her, and I know I haven’t done anything, then what? Is it my father?”

Professor Kingsley reached out and grabbed his upper arm tightly enough to illicit an “Ow!” from him and began to drag him towards the door. “Why I choose to ignore you is none of your concern.” He stopped in front of the door and shook William hard enough to rattle his teeth. “Furthermore, if you are so insistent on landing yourself in detention, then you have succeeded.”

He threw William out and slammed the door behind him. William stood in the hall, panting slightly, holding a hand over his arm, which he was sure would bruise. For a moment he couldn’t think, and when his mental faculties finally caught up with themselves there was only one thing on his mind. Thanks to Professor Kingsley’s little display of superiority, he was going to have to masturbate yet again that night.

 

 

*****

 

 

William did his best to stay out of Professor Kingsley’s way after he’d served his detention. It hadn’t been very difficult, actually, what with exams and only a week to go before he would be heading back to the country. All he’d had to do was make sure that he was one of the first to leave the classroom and that he broke absolutely no rules.

He’d called his father and asked his permission to have Tom over the day before exams and, as usual, he’d said yes and asked if that was all and affirmed that William really shouldn’t call him during work hours for such ‘frivolous matters.’ It was, more or less, what he’d expected, so he was fairly pleased with himself and made it a point to tell Father Mathis thank you again, that he thought his letter had really made the difference. It was what his mother would have called ‘polite correspondence.’

The only problem had been that by the time William was to take the cab his parents had arranged for him, he’d had the nagging feeling that he should say something else to Professor Kingsley, rather than leaving it the way it was. He didn’t care if Kingsley thought he was being a nuisance, but he didn’t want him angry. So, he left the driver at the front of the school and made his way to the Professor’s office.

Kingsley was sitting in his high back chair, eyebrows scrunched together in concentration, grading what appeared to be a term paper. Unlike midterms they did not get their final grades back until two weeks into vacation. “Professor Kingsley?”

He looked up, shocked to see William, perhaps, but he didn’t seem upset about it; if anything, he appeared curious. “Yes, Mr. Bryce?”

“Would you stop calling me that?” He hadn’t meant to say that, but Kingsley didn’t correct his manners, so William assumed his tone hadn’t been too insolent. “I just wanted to apologize for last week. I’m not sure why I got so upset, I just... well, it was probably to do with exams and all.”

After a moment, Professor Kingsley nodded. “Apology accepted, William.”

He started at the use of his given name and literally had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning. He liked the way Kingsley said William. Once his facial expression was under control, William shuffled his feet nervously. “Right, well, I have a cab waiting, so...”

Kingsley was already looking back down at his papers, but nodded. “Go. I look forward to giving you detention next term.”

That was... he had said something that could qualify as a joke. A rather funny joke actually. William nodded, despite the fact Kingsley couldn’t see him, because he didn’t trust himself to talk without laughing and ran through the halls to the driver outside. He sat in the back seat and stared at the school as they drove away.

He looked forward to giving him detention.

 

 

*****

 

 

Twenty minutes of riding to the station, thirty minutes waiting for the train, two hours on the train, another five minutes waiting for the pick up taxi, and thirty minutes to the manner house all the while thinking about what Professor Kingsley had said with a stupid sort of grin on his face were all dashed and destroyed the moment his walked into the house.

“Your father will be coming home for a week.”

William gripped his bags, trying to ignore the knot of dread building in his stomach. “When?”

“In a month.”

His mother had obviously anticipated his displeasure, otherwise she wouldn’t have ambushed him on his way in the door. One month, that was four weeks, which would put it at... and it hit him. One month was when Tom would be arriving, which meant they would have to sneak around him. Bugger.

Or not.

“Fine.”

She raised a suspicious eyebrow. He usually had at least some sort of a fit when he was told his father was coming home longer than just a weekend. “Go put your things upstairs and come down for tea. It’s getting cold.”

William refrained from telling her that it hardly mattered how cold the tea was because nothing could make it worse and stormed up the stairs instead.

 

 

*****

 

 

William looked down at the pile of envelopes Tom had dumped onto his bed. “What’s all this, then?”

“Tanya wrote you.”

He looked up at Tom to ask if he was serious, but he had the kind of grin on his face that meant he found the situation very amusing as it was, which meant he wasn’t joking. “Why couldn’t she just have mailed them?”

“She tried.” He put the now empty duffle bag on the floor. “They were all unopened and stamped for return in bright red ink. Apparently your headmaster didn’t like the idea of you having a dialogue with Ms. Iving. She cried for an hour, thinking you’d returned them yourself.”

“Only an hour?”

“Well, I convinced her that it couldn’t be you.”

“How?”

“Well, to begin, you always open mail before returning it. I think it’s a sign of your undying curiosity. For second, your return stamp is purple.”

William flushed just slightly and began stacking the letters on his bedside table for later reading. “Is not.” Tom raised an eyebrow and his blush deepened. “It’s lilac. And before you say anything, my mother gave it to me, so I didn’t have a say in the color.”

“Yes, but you are enough of a ponce to know the difference between purple and lilac.”

William reached behind him to grab a pillow to throw at Tom, but stopped mid-gesture when one of the letters caught his eye. It was written in an untidy scrawl as opposed to Tanya bubbly print. “Tom, this one isn’t from Tanya.”

“Not all of them are.” He went back to looking through his suitcase.

“Tom.”

“Yes?”

“This is from Headmaster Griggs.”

Tom kept his face down, but he could still see him smile. “It’s an apology for having overreacted. He called your father a few days after he kicked you out, but you’d already been shipped out to St. Christoff’s.”

William opened it and pulled out the neatly folded, letterhead paper. It was indeed an apology, stating that he had overreacted and that of all the things William had done in the past few years at Knox, making out with Tanya ‘yo-yo-knickers’ Iving...

“He called her yo-yo-knickers!”

“Defending her honor?”

“If she had any.”

...was probably not such a dire offense. In fact, after some contemplation it was a bit of a relief. Some of the staff had taken William’s lack of interest in dating as a sign that he was either gay or destined for priesthood.

“The staff knew before I did.”

“Knew what?”

“That I was gay.”

“William, from what I hear at least half the school did.” William folded the letter back up and put it in the envelope. It had been nice of him to apologize, even though William hadn’t thought he had been in any way out of line. In fact, he wouldn’t have thought it were out of line had he been thrown out the office window head first.

He was about to pick up another letter that wasn’t Tanya’s handwriting, when Tom suddenly came out of his suitcase looking very pleased with himself. “I found it!”

“You were looking for something?” Tom narrowed his eyes and William shrugged, “What is it, then?”

Tom crawled up on the bed and sat across from him, his face far too innocent for it to be an honest expression. “It’s your birthday present.”

“My birthday isn’t until a week after you leave.”

“Exactly, you have to open it now because I very much want to watch you enjoy it.”

Cautiously, William took the package from him. It was about the size of a child’s shoebox and was held shut with a large pink ribbon, which he momentarily contemplated using to garrote his best friend. Unfortunately, curiosity got the better of him and he went ahead and opened it.

As soon as his brain caught up with his eyes all the blood in William’s body rushed to his cheeks and he dropped it quickly, resisting the urge to bury his face in one of the pillows behind him. “That... that’s...”

“A battery operated sex aid?” Tom was far too proud of himself.

William’s face got warmer. He didn’t even want to know how red it was. “I can’t...” but he couldn’t very well finish that sentence because in all actuality what was making him so embarrassed was the fact that he very much wanted to see what he could do with it.

Tom took his silence as a good thing and picked the box back up. “That’s not all, either. I’m not overly experienced in the toy department, so Tanya helped.”

At the idea that Tanya had picked out some of what was in there, William took another look inside, still not daring to hold it. This time he actually did bury his head in a pillow. Oh god, he hadn’t. There were people in that town that had children going to the academy. What if they’d seen him buying that stuff?

He lifted his head just enough to talk. “That is a... a butt plug. Do you mind telling me what you intend for me to do with a butt plug?”

“Stick it up your arse?”

William put his head back down, but that didn’t prevent him from hearing the rest. “There’s also some lube. Tanya insisted I buy at least two flavored. I got strawberry and cherry. There’s also one that’s supposed to heat up when you rub it, and there’s handcuffs and...”

He sat up and looked back in the box. There were indeed handcuffs. “You thought I would want to use handcuffs?”

“You’ve had fantasies about letting your domineering English Professor spank you. I thought you might be into bondage.”

He did have a point. “Yeah, alright.”

By the time they had settled Tom into his room, it was nearly time for an early dinner, a tactic which was meant to keep them from having to eat with William’s parents later in the day. They snuck down into the kitchens and moved things around in the enormous cupboard that his mother kept full to the brim with foods that could only be eaten when cooked into something.

Near the very back they discovered an old can of tuna, but that looked dodgy, so they abandoned the cupboard in favor of leftover macaroni casserole from the fridge and headed up to his room to eat.

Tom was very excited about seeing the west wing of the house, because he had never been in a house with more than one wing. William had completely forgotten about that, but promised that he would give him the tour in the morning.

A goodnight kiss turned into a goodnight groping session, not that William was disappointed, and when he went to sleep that evening he had the satisfied feeling that he was going to enjoy his summer vacation very much.

 

 

*****

 

 

William woke the next morning to the strangest feeling. At first he didn’t really know what it was. It took him a moment to realize it was Tom, laying behind him, kissing his neck, and rubbing a finger up and down the crack of his ass. When he started to turn to ask what he thought he was doing, Tom slipped the finger inside of him, giving him a great appreciation for the lubricant he had to be using.

He gave a breathy moan at the easy intrusion and wrapped at arm behind him to pull Tom’s head close to his for a deep kiss. It tasted horrible as neither of them had managed to brush their teeth yet, but that was very much overshadowed by a second finger pushing in with the first.

As he began to move them just slightly, William found that he wanted more, more friction, more fingers; it really didn’t matter, just more. He voiced his need in a breathy whisper and Tom complied, nearly pulling them out entirely before sliding them back in. Within minutes William was reduced to desperate whimpers of pleasure.

Tom scooted around a little, disrupting the rhythm he had established and William opened his eyes to see what he was doing. He couldn’t even remember closing them. Tom was reaching for something on the table, which William saw was piled with several of the things he’d brought with him.

He tried not to blush when Tom grabbed a bottle of lubricant and the vibrator. It was smooth and rubbery, and William had to turn away because he could feel the heat rising to his cheeks. There was the squelching sound of the lubricant being opened and then silence.

When he felt tip of it, wet and cold, touch the crack of his ass William gave a little yelp that made Tom chuckle behind him. He pressed it forward and moved it around until William could feel it nudge against the opening.

Tom leaned forward, breathing into his ear. “You ready?”

He nodded, because he really didn’t trust his voice. Unlike when Baun had breached him, it hurt only a little.   For the most part it was simply uncomfortable. It stretched him a little too much, but he couldn’t help feeling that was a good thing, so after the first stings of pain had receded he pressed back a little and let Tom slide it into him.

There was an entirely new set of sensations as Tom pressed it in further and slowly began moving it. The lubricant made it pull less on his skin and he found that he was gasping softly as the strokes became longer and deeper. It wasn’t long before he was all but begging Tom to just get on with it and fuck him, not that he wasn’t enjoying the vibrator – when Tom had turned it on for a few seconds he’d just about cum – but it was plastic and impersonal and there was something about the thought of having the real thing inside me that made his voice drop several decibels.

Tom teased him for another second before pulling it out. William’s body closed around nothing and his whimper quickly turned into a deep-throated moan as Tom pressed himself in. He stopped just after entry, but William didn’t want him to. That wonderfully sadistic part of him was begging to be fucked.

He reached an arm back and put it on Tom’s hip, pulling it towards him until Tom got the message and slid the rest of the way inside. He latched onto William’s neck, under his ear, and slowly started to move. William pressed back against him, urging him to go a little harder, and then a little faster.

He didn’t do whatever it was that Baun had done to make fireworks go off in William’s body, but it still didn’t take long for either of them to reach completion. William wrapped his hand around his own cock and pumped a few frantic times, biting into the pillow to keep from screaming as he came. Shortly afterward, he felt the pressure of teeth on his neck as Tom followed suit.

After several minutes of deep breathing, William’s body began to relax and he sighed happily. “You do that often?”

Tom mumbled into the back of his neck. “Do what?”

“Bugger people silly.”

Tom chuckled pleasantly and pulled out slowly, then sat up and offered William a hand, which he gratefully accepted. William took a shy glance down at him and noticed that he was wearing a condom. He couldn’t remember him putting one on, unless... he raised a questioning eyebrow, “You were that sure of yourself?”

Tom leaned forward, planting a very soft, overly sweet kiss on William’s lips. “I spent the entire evening dreaming of what I was going to do to you this morning. I was that desperate.”

As they showered together, still attempting to make as little noise as possible while laughing and occasionally fondling each other, William decided that sex was very possibly the only good way to start a morning and one that he intended to indulge in as often as he could.


	7. Chapter 7

Over the next week they explored the west wing at length, something William had not done since early childhood. The west wing had had minimal electricity at one point, but when the wiring had started to deteriorate his father had decided that cutting it off entirely was far more reasonable than having it replaced seeing as he did not plan on using those rooms any time soon. This meant they had to carry around flashlights in case there wasn’t enough light coming in through the grime covered windows. The only entrance to the west wing was through a door on the left had side of the second floor behind a giant picture of William’s grandmother. She had been a grand beauty in her younger years.

There was one problem with her design, though, and that was the entryway. Nearly every room on the first floor of the west wing had vaulted ceilings, except for the parlor and the office, which were directly under the second floor entryway. Since there hadn’t been anything else on that floor, and since she hadn’t seen fit to make an attic, this was designated as storage as well as family wing access. It was dark, filled with boxes of junk, and there was only one window, covered in a thick black tarp to keep harmful sun light from fading the colors of the painting and furniture that was stored there.

Tom wanted to look around, so William opened the window, filling the air with dust and light. There had been some interesting things among the paintings and moth eaten furniture. There was a snow globe of London tower with little people standing around it in twenties garb, and a lamp that was undeniably period. William found the diary of one of his great aunts among some paperwork and busied himself with trying to read through the smudged ink while Tom explored.

His great aunt Estelle had lived with his grandmother for a few years before she died. She was apparently in the house at the same time that William’s father was.

_Kathleen has taken in a stray, a ragtag little street waif from some state in the Americas. It is all good and well for her to show pity, seeing as she has done so very well for herself, despite our expectations, but this is truly outrageous, even for her._

_I’ll not divulge who his mother is, as I don’t wish to be petty, but suffice it to say that Kathleen did not get along with the woman and to think that she would actually let him live under her roof simply because he claims to have no where else to go is... irrational, at best._

_If it were up to me, that child would have been sent back home faster than he could have begged.   However, seeing as it is not up to me, I will just have to take it upon myself to make sure that she does not make the mistake of pitying him further than necessary._

“Hey, Tom, my grandmother’s name was Kathleen.”

“Isn’t she your great grandmother?”

Well, come to that... “Yes, I suppose she is.” It had never really occurred to him to call her anything else. His father always called her that, as did his mother, and neither had corrected him.

Tom shrugged and headed over, “What are you looking at?”

“The diary of a great aunt. She kept it while she was staying here. It mentions my father as an American stray. It’s very amusing. I think I’ll keep it.”

They spent nearly a full day in there and the study alone, looking through boxes and opening carefully wrapped trinkets to see what they were. William would have been concerned about breaking something, but half of what they found was already broken, so he decided that it probably didn’t matter all that much.

It took them a few days to work their way through the parlor, then into the ballroom, through the entrance hall (his parents hadn’t even taken the flowers out of the vases when they’d closed it up), into the grand dining hall, which could seat nearly a hundred, and into the kitchens. To Tom’s surprise, it was indeed ‘kitchens’ because it had been equipped with three stoves, four ovens, two refrigerators, and three sinks, all of which were now antiquities, but had once been top of the line appliances.

Tom made the mistake of opening one of the refrigerators. It was mostly empty, but William did remember seeing a small wedge of cheese in there once. He would have thought it had grown legs and wandered off by then, but apparently not. Apparently, when cheese goes bad it roots itself, because Tom hit it with the handle of a pot several times before it so much as budged, and when it did he closed the door as fast as he could and refused to open it again.

The very last thing they explored was the third floor. Grandmother had cared just about as much for floor access as William had for rules. He got the feeling that she hadn’t thought much beyond aesthetics. The main entryway to the west wing had a stair case that spiraled all the way to the third floor, where the guest quarters would have been. It looked brilliant, but he couldn’t imagine many people enjoyed the steep climb every morning and evening.

There wasn’t much of interest on the third floor, though Tom suggested that William could make a fortune renting the place out for special occasions. He was probably right, but William wouldn’t get that chance until his parents decided to pass on, or until he decided to help them there, which wasn’t as unlikely as he would have liked. Of course, Tom also suggested they shag on the top of the stairwell, looking down over the railing, which proved he was entirely out of his mind... or the dust had finally gotten to him.

When they had exhausted themselves exploring and having various forms of sex in the west wing, they decided that it would be nice to take a swim. Tom suggested having sex in the pool and William was very intrigued by it, right up until he saw mother staring at them from the kitchen window. If anything could kill the mood...

As he’d mentioned to Tom during the winter holiday, they had a pool house, equipped with two changing rooms, each with three shower heads, toilet stalls, and wooden benches to sit on, because apparently, people liked to sit on wooden benches in changing rooms. It wasn’t very big, at least not by estate standards, but it was rather useful, especially when two horny teenage boys were looking for a place to have a quick shag.

Tom sat him down on a wooden bench and dropped between his knees, unbuttoning his dust covered jeans before wedged them down his thighs and calves. “William?”

William nodded mutely. In the past few days it had come to his attention that when he talked during foreplay he sounded about five years old, skittish and nervous, so William had decided that it was best for him to keep his mouth shut. Tom grinned up at him. “I was thinking that,” he licked the lip again, very slowly, “maybe you’d want to top this time?”

His surprise did nothing to dissuade his growing erection, but he did have to stop and think, which put a bit of a damper on the whole mood. Top? William didn’t even know what he was supposed to do. Well, that wasn’t entirely true, he knew from what Tom had done to him, but that was different. This was different.

Tom sensed his hesitation and sat up, level with William’s face. “You don’t have to.”

There was a moderate amount of disappointment in his voice, nothing heartbreaking, but it was enough to make William decide that he might as well try it once. It wasn’t like anything horrible or irreparable would happen if he didn’t like it.

He kissed Tom soundly on the mouth and Tom relaxed a little, his hands unclenching on William’s thighs. Pulling back, William gave him a crocked grin. “I wouldn’t mind at all.”

William was nervous, much like with Baun, only this time he had more to worry about with hurting someone else than getting hurting himself. Tom pulled back and sat on his haunches, slowly wrapping his lips around William’s cock. William watched Tom reach into his back pocket and pull out a small square condom wrapper. He slowly tore open the packet and slipped the little plastic sheath over him.

Despite William apprehensions, he found himself very much looking forward to the experience as he watched Tom’s eyes looking up at him while his fingers rolled down his cock. When he was done, Tom stood, discarding his own clothes nonchalantly before sitting back down on William’s knees and kissing him. They hadn’t done a lot of sitting in each other’s laps, but William thought that he liked it quite a bit. In fact, he liked it a lot.

Tom probed his mouth deeply with his tongue and William moaned into it. It seemed that Tom didn’t mind being in charge, even when he bottomed, which was perfectly fine with William. Tom pressed his chest against William’s and ground his hips down hard enough to make him moan again. William’s erection was practically throbbing when Tom finally pulled away.

He gave Tom a curious look, not exactly sure how to proceed. Did Tom want to be on his back; on his knees? Apparently, he wanted neither. He gave William a rather impish grin as he slathered a good amount spit onto the top of the condom, before turning around to straddle William’s lap, back to chest. He lifted himself onto the balls his feet and pressed the palms of his hands on William’s knees.

The sensation of Tom sliding down over his cock made it very difficult to breathe for about a minute, and when he did it came with a deep throaty groan. There was entirely too much sensation, too tight, too warm, not unlike a good blow job, but more so.

William was half afraid he would blow his load before Tom had gotten fully seated, but he took it slow and William managed to reign himself in with deep breaths and nails in his palms. When Tom was settled into William’s lap, he began rocking, rather than outright moving. It was both infuriating and wonderful at the same time.

After nearly two minutes of grinding, he pulled himself up and then sat down again, hard and fast. William wrapped his arm across Tom’s chest and pulled him back against him to listen to the noises he was inadvertently making. They were similar to the sounds William often made, some high pitched and desperate, others deep and satisfying.

He kissed Tom’s neck, sucking behind his ear while he writhed on top of him, wanting to move. There must have been a sadistic streak in William, right along with the masochistic one he’d come to terms with, because he really enjoyed Tom’s half hearted attempts at movement, while William massaged his chest and abdomen, working his way to his cock.

He barely brushed it with his palm and he could feel the shudder rush down Tom’s spine. Of course, William already knew he wasn’t going to last long for this either, so he gripped Tom’s hips and encouraged him to move again. It was less than a minute before Tom tightened around him in orgasm and William let himself go.

They moved onto the heated floor, collapsing under a spray of warm water. Tom caught his breath and leaned over to give William a languid kiss. “Good for you?”

William nodded numbly. Good was an understatement; that had been bloody fantastic. “You enjoy yourself?”

“Oh yes.” Tom stood up shakily and reached for the little bar of soap in the recess of the wall. “Not really sure I can swim, though. Legs are a bit weak.”

William nodded again, conceding that perhaps swimming was not the best idea at the moment. “There’s the hot tub. Or we could just go and take a nap.”

Tom laughed into the water, and bits of it splattered from the top of his head onto William. He grinned back up and leaned his head against the wall leisurely. He didn’t think he minded topping at all; preferred bottoming, there was nothing like giving control up entirely to someone else, but topping had its ups.

 

 

****

 

 

They spent the rest of the vacation swimming, strolling through the grounds, and watching bad telly, but it was possibly the most enjoyable vacation William had ever had.

Tom talked about his family some, a topic that had never come up much at Knox. He lived in a nice little home just outside of London, with three bedrooms. He shared one of them with his three brothers, and his younger sister had the smallest room to herself. He called her ‘brat’ in an affectionate manner William couldn’t quite grasp.

William talked about Professor Kingsley some more, ranting about how he had ignored him and blushing at how he’d said he looked forward to giving him detention. Tom hadn’t been all that surprised that he fancied Kingsley and even encouraged him to go for it.

William wanted to, god knew he wanted to, but he was also a little bit afraid. Teacher/Student relationships were frowned upon, if not illegal, and the last thing he wanted was to get Kingsley in trouble, but then Tom had pointed out that William was an impetuous teenager and it was his job to try and get what he wanted regardless of what authority figures thought of it.

Besides William’s nervous disposition over it, there was the underlying realization that Kingsley probably wasn’t gay. He had dated William’s mother, after all, which meant that in all likelihood he was as straight as a bleeding arrow and not even Tom’s joking insistence that William’s pretty face could turn anyone was enough to cheer him up. It wasn’t hopeless, of course, there was always a chance that he was bi.

By the time Tom left and William was packing to go back to school, there was a comforting, nagging sense of ‘maybe’ in the back of his mind that wouldn’t let go. The first step would be getting into Kingsley’s confidence, getting him used to William’s presence as something other than a nuisance and after that... after that he’d just have to see.

 

 

*****

 

 

From the very moment that William had gotten back to school there had been a kind of weight on him that he couldn’t explain, but couldn’t ignore; it was the weight of having had something very important happen to him and being unable to tell a single person. What had made it worse was that Emerson, who was arguably his best friend at St. Christoff’s, wouldn’t stop asking him what he’d done over the holiday, because apparently ‘nothing’ just wouldn’t suffice.

It was to this extent that within the first few days William found himself ignoring his friends almost entirely. He didn’t mind listening to them, or suffering through their questions, but there was something exhausting about hiding who he was and he couldn’t keep it up for very long at any one time. The only thing that kept him from going entirely insane was the thought of a certain Professor.

Kingsley obviously didn’t feel the same way and to top it off, he wasn’t nearly as happy about giving William detention as he’d said he’d be. William had given into day dreaming, but had all his hopes dashed when Kingsley scowled at him for accidentally forgetting to put Professor before his name and told him he could start on the Chemistry labs that evening.

Bloody Chem labs. That meant he’d have to organize all the little bottles and other odds and ends, which could take hours. William was not, however, as desperately crest fallen as all that, because while Kingsley hadn’t seemed happy about it, he had stopped ignoring him. In fact, he’d been asking William whether he was paying attention when he’d slipped up. So, even if Kingsley wasn’t necessarily cheery about the situation, he wasn’t being childish anymore and that was something.

Of course, William would have to watch himself from then on. He’d spent the entire summer calling him just Kingsley to Tom and it had become so natural that when faced with the man, he hadn’t even thought twice before saying, “Yes, Kingsley.” Although, the shade of red his Professor turned had been rather attractive, William would have liked to have seen it under different circumstances - as in flushed with lust as apposed to beat red with anger.

Having made him so angry, William got the feeling that perhaps an apology was in order. This didn’t come to him until the next morning, however, which meant he would have to visit him in his private chambers. It just didn’t feel appropriate broaching the subject with other students around - that and one could potentially tell a lot of things about a man by his décor, one of which was sexual preference. Not that it was to be taken for granted, but he’d heard on several occasions that gay men were notoriously meticulous and William was willing to get his hopes up if Kingsley turned out to have tidy living quarters.

It wasn’t until nearly a week after that he finally had both the time and occasion to visit Kingsley. Occasion meaning that he finally learned which room was his. Time meaning that Emerson was talking the Perkins about their plans for the next morning (Saturday), Wallace was doing their homework, and they all assumed William was reading a required text.

When he was sure they wouldn’t notice, William closed the book, set it on his bed, and walked out as nonchalantly as if he were heading to the loo. Instead, he passed up the bathroom and went down the back stairwell to the ground floor and snuck quietly past several doors until he got to Kingsley’s.

Taking a deep breath, he knocked softly, hoping that none of the other teachers would hear. When it didn’t open immediately, William couldn’t bring himself to knock again, so he tried to knob instead. It opened. Now he had a moral dilemma. He could either call out a name, or simply go in and hope that Kingsley was both decent and not too mad at the invasion of privacy. William had never been one to spend too much time waxing over morals.

The room had very little in the way of furnishings and what was there did nothing to make the tiny living room look any bigger. There was a large, stiff brown sofa under the window on the far wall with a dark wood coffee table in front of it, to the right of the sofa was a bookcase, packed to overflowing with books in a rather chaotic fashion, and to the left of it was a closed, red curtain that William was very curious about, but too nervous to actually go looking behind.   There was a small, dark wood desk immediately to the left of the entry with a cherry-wood chair; a little television was to the right; and next to that, a door slightly ajar.

“Professor Kingsley?

He didn’t answer, so William walked nervously up to the open door and peaked inside, “Professor Kingsley?”

It was his bedroom. William was distantly aware of the noise of a shower running, but his mind had locked up at the realization that he was staring at Kingsley’s bed, which took up a good portion of the room, barely leaving space for the wardrobe. It was a large bed, probably king sized, and the covers were made, but the job looked hastily done – he could see the wrinkles in the comforter where the sheets were twisted. There were clothes on the floor, a pair of trousers, a shirt, and... his underwear.

William had just noticed the underwear when a door opened next to the wardrobe and William looked up to find myself staring at his decidedly naked Professor. Well, not entirely naked, he had a towel wrapped around his head. There was less than a second pause before Kingsley dropped the towel to his waist, but it was plenty of time for the vision of him naked to emblazoned itself in the back of William’s eyes; his hair wet and hanging out from the bottom of the white towel, water dripping from it and running down his body, which wasn’t quite as pale underneath as he’d have thought it would be and, oh god, he had a six pack and below that he was... well, that was rather impressive, even in its flaccid state.

His mind caught up with him just about the time Kingsley dropped the towel to cover himself and William’s face and ears went a vivid red. He turned around and closed the door with hasty apologies that he doubted Kingsley could hear over his own thunderous voice.

“Bryce, what the bloody hell are you doing in here?”

“I came to see you, I’m sorry!”

He heard drawers opening in the bedroom as Kingsley rushed to get dressed. “These are my private quarters!”

“I know, I’m sorry!”

The drawer slammed shut. “You do not just walk into someone’s private living quarters!”

“It was unlocked, I’m sorry!”

“That does not give you permission to come in. Haven’t you ever heard of knocking?” Well, at least he knew Kingsley was listening to him on some level.

“I did knock!” He tried to keep the incredulous tone from his voice. “But you didn’t answer.” Then, just to be safe, “I’m sorry!”

“Stop apologizing!”

The bedroom door opened and William had a fleeting thought that perhaps he should run, right before Kingsley grabbed his upper arm and began marching him towards the exit. “But, I am sorry! Let go! I came here to apologize!”

He wrenched his arm out of Kingsley’s grip and Kingsley looked at him in anger. It was rather intimidating, seeing as he was several inches taller. “Leave.”

Ignoring him, William took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I didn’t address you properly in class.”

For a moment Kingsley froze, not even breathing, then his anger turned to disbelief. “You... It’s been almost a week, Mr. Bryce, and I hardly think it’s appropriate for you to come to my rooms for that sort of thing. I do have an office.”

William bit his lip nervously. Now was probably as good a time as any. “I know, but I also wanted to ask you something.” He raised an eyebrow. “It’s about my parents. My mother, really. She told me you and her were involved and... well, I wanted to know what she meant, because she wouldn’t tell me.”

He waited patiently for the bomb to drop and for Kingsley to start yelling at him as he had before term break, but instead his professor became very calm, if a little irritated. “We were involved, William, if she wanted you to know more, she would have told you.”

He’d called him William, and he was only slightly ashamed that it affected him just as thoroughly as it had before.

“May I ask why you don’t like my father?”

Kingsley’s eye twitched and he tensed, but he didn’t yell. “Your mother broke up with me to date him in our seventh year.”

It seemed a rather poor excuse, but at least it was something. “That’s all your going to tell me, isn’t it?”

“Yes, William.”

“I should be going to bed, then, shouldn’t I?”

Kingsley nodded and opened the door, gesturing him out. William nodded back and stepped out, then turned around and gave him what he hoped was an honest smile. “I’m sorry I entered without permission.”

“Hm.”

“I am.”

“I know.” He didn’t really sound like he believed him, but he didn’t sound particularly angry, either, so William decided to take what he could get and dropped it for the moment.

He’d barely walked three steps from his door when a small buzzing sound filtered down through the upper floors, signaling that it was officially lights out.

“Detention, Mr. Bryce, for being out of bed after lights out.”

Kingsley shut the door before he could respond and William stomped his foot on the floor in frustration rather than curse. Damn him! He was only out of bed because he was seeing him! Out of everything, how could he give him detention for that? Then William heard a funny sort of noise coming from behind his door. Kingsley was chuckling. He thought it was funny!

Well, if that was what it took to get on the man’s good side it looked as though William would be serving quite a bit more detention than last semester.

 

 

*****

 

 

William served his detention in Professor Kingsley’s classroom, since he had finished scrubbing most of the other rooms. He’d reverted back to having William copy the dictionary, which made his wrist hurt, but wasn’t nearly as disgusting. William sat down at the desk and opened the large volume to page one.

Five minutes in, he looked up and saw that Kingsley grading papers. His head was down, but he could see the top of his forehead creased in concentration. William forced a sigh down as a momentary flash of his professor starkers past through his mind. _Damn, should’ve gotten a better look at his legs._

“Professor Kingsley?” He started, but looked up with one raised eyebrow; probably wondering what made William think he could dare to speak during detention. “Were you and my father friends? Because that’s the only way I could see you being mad at him when it’s my mum who was being a tramp.”

Kingsley seemed startled at his choice of words. “A tramp, Mr. Bryce?”

“She is, and it’s William.”

“Indeed.” He stood up and walked over, sitting on top of the desk next to William’s, his face a careful mask of indifference. “I don’t suppose you intend to give this up, do you?”

William shook his head. “It’s just that I can’t, Professor, it keeps bothering me.”

Kingsley didn’t correct him on his slip up of proper title, to which William was grateful. It was embarrassing enough to have to confess that the details of Kingsley’s adolescent love life were nagging him.

“You are nothing like your father.”

William was more than a little shocked. “I... No one talks to me about my father except his work associates, and I don’t see them but once every few years.”

“Really?” Kingsley sighed, looking as though he wasn’t sure if he should be intrigued or more perturbed than he already was. “You reminded me of him at first, but the more I look at you, the more you remind me of her. There are definite feminine qualities about you that your father never possessed.”

William didn’t know whether he should take it as a compliment or if he should be insulted at being told he looked like a girl. He supposed that of the two, he would rather look like his mother, so he thank him shyly.

“No need.” There was a hint less annoyance in his voice, but he looked distracted, like he was turning something over in his head while he was talking. “You act like your mother, as well. She was quiet in school, she had a very small group of friends that she kept at arm’s length, and she had a ready blush.” William’s face heated up automatically. “Yes, like you, she had a tendency to blush at just about everything. If she were embarrassed, if attention were drawn to her, if she were angry; sometimes all I had to do was say her name and she would turn a deep scarlet.” William really hadn’t known that about her. He’d never been around her long enough to notice that.

Kingsley was very silent for nearly a full minute. William could hear my own heart beating in his chest and it was hard to keep the flush out of his cheeks with him sitting so tantalizingly close. Kingsley’s knee was just an inch shy of brushing his shoulder. Maybe if he shifted just right William could accidentally touch it. He was so caught up in the thought that he nearly jumped when Kingsley spoke again. Luckily, he managed not to look too startled.

When he spoke, it was in a tone of resigned indifference, like one would use when placating a child who was asking too many questions. Although, William supposed that was how Kingsley saw him. “Well, then, let’s see. Your mother and I dated for five years. David and I were friends. A week before our seventh term ended, your mother came to me and said that she was leaving me for him.”

The more he talked, the more emotionless his tone became. William got the feeling he was overcompensating, which didn’t help with the fact that he was beginning to feel guilty for having asked. It was clear that even after so many years it was still a sensitive topic.

“When you showed up you reminded me of him and it didn’t help that your last name was Bryce, however, I had not even entertained the idea that they’d had a child together until I walked into the Headmaster’s office to talk with your parents and saw the two of them sitting there.”

The guilt finally forced an apology from him, “Sorry.” Kingsley raised an eyebrow questioningly. “I mean, well... they’re not happy together. They hardly see each other if they don’t have to and sometimes I’m pretty sure they don’t even sleep in the same bed, if that helps.”

“It doesn’t. You’re dismissed.” He didn’t sound angry in particular, but William couldn’t really place how he sounded now, because he had stood up to walk back to his desk and wasn’t looking at him.

“Professor?”

“Yes, William?”

“My mother, what was she like when you dated her?”

“Kind, exceptionally so, and beautiful.”

William could clearly hear the strain in Kingsley’s voice, so he stood quickly and left, trying not to look too shocked at the revelation. He simply couldn’t picture his mother as anything other than cold and aloof and as much as he hated himself for it, he knew that he had many more questions he had to ask, just not right then.


	8. Chapter 8

After the conversation in detention William was forced to conclude that Professor Kingsley had to be straight. It had been painfully obvious that it hurt him to talk about William’s mother and that meant he still had feeling for her. So, he liked girls, but William liked him and there wasn’t a damn thing either of them could do to get what they wanted. Of course, that didn’t mean that William had given up entirely, but he laid it aside for the time being and focused on getting what he could out of his dear Professor - information about his mother and even, much to his own disgust, his father.

There really was no good explanation as to why he was so curious all of a sudden. He’d never been before, but then, he’d never been around anyone who knew anything about them. Other children were raised with grandparents, or aunts, or uncles, or friends of the family to tell them stories and interesting things about their parents that made them seem more human. William never really had that. He’d been raised solely by his parents and a grade school teacher who met with them once a year. No one was there to remind him that the distant, detached people he spent nearly every waking hour with had, at one point in their lives, been warm and caring. No one was there to tell him that they had been something other than what he saw and, quite frankly, he was fascinated.

His mother had been kind. That thought alone egged him into talking to Kingsley again the next time he had detention, which happened to be very shortly after their last conversation – he caught William running through the halls after practice one evening. The next detention went the same and the one after that, until Kingsley told him that if he were going to badger him incessantly, he should not be doing it during school hours and gave him permission to visit his rooms Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

The first few weekends that William showed up in front of his door, Kingsley seemed annoyed and put off. However, William was not so easily deterred and after awhile Kingsley became used to his presence and talking about things that he’d probably rather not have talked about. It went from ‘Do you not have anyone else you could possibly annoy in your free time?’ to a resigned, ‘come in.’

William learned quite a bit about his parents over the next two months. His father had been outgoing and brass. He had been the sort of person that was most likely to share intimate details about himself before even giving his name. He had enjoyed saying things that shocked teachers and students. That was how he’d met Kingsley and William’s mother.

He had only been at the school a week when he leaned over in class and told Adrianna Fronthous that she had a _rather_ nice rack for fifteen, emphasizing the word ‘rather’ with a fake British accent that made half the class cringe. The other half cringed when Ms. Fronthous’s boyfriend tapped the new boy on the shoulder and proceeded to deck him. When David (Kingsley refused to call him ‘your father’) woke up, he had apologized and said that had he known Ms. Fronthous was spoken for, he would have complimented Mr. Kingsley on what a nice rack his girlfriend had. They’d been friends ever since.

William told Kingsley that he couldn’t see his father saying anything inappropriate, but then he also had trouble seeing his father saying much of anything at all. Kingsley told him that he, David, and Adrianna had been hard pressed to separate. They had gone to all the school functions together and spent the summer vacation after sixth year at the Kingsleys’ home.

On my third weekend there he showed William pictures. There was one of the Kingsley family’s ancestral home; it put the Bryce estate to shame. There were at least a hundred pictures of his mother - some of her standing outside, some of her riding David’s shoulders, one of her climbing a tree, and several of her bare feet, small and perfectly pedicured with pink nail polish on every toe. He explained that she’d spent hours doing her nails while David and he still hadn’t caught up with their homework. Besides being kind and shy she had also been a very good student.

Before William left that day Kingsley actually given him one of the pictures. She was sitting on a bench, bent over a book, with her hair shining in the setting sun and her bare feet swinging over the edge of a bench. Her face was so calm, her ears and cheeks were flushed pink, and there was a small smile on her face that told him Kingsley hadn’t been lying. She’d been just as kind as he’d said.

He didn’t go back that Sunday because he wanted to think. They’d spent several hours talking so far and the more he told William about them, the more cheated William felt. If they had been such good people, then why hadn’t they been good to him? Why had they turned bitter and cold when he was born? Was there something wrong with him? Part of him wanted to call and ask, but he was far too afraid that he might have been the reason they were like that.

He got over it, though. It really didn’t matter why they were the way they were. Perhaps it was marriage; perhaps mother really had loved Kingsley and thought she’d made a mistake, that could certainly turn just about anyone bitter, so he went back and they talked more, and Kingsley started to let William call him just Kingsley when they were alone without giving him detention, because he kept forgetting, anyway.

The other students noticed the change, but there wasn’t anything to it, really. William still got detention, just not as often as before; he still got glared at, but now it was with a sort of disappointment, rather than distaste; and he still got just as many D’s and C’s, just not written quite so violently across the top of his papers.

Emerson brought it up, that he thought it was strange and he wanted to know what was going on. William hadn’t gone with them on weekends for over a month, he was distracted in practice, and suddenly the dreaded Professor Kingsley had let up on him, even if just a fraction. He tried to tell Emerson that it was nothing, but he kept asking questions and William found himself feeling very sorry for the way he had badgered Kingsley into telling him everything because now that he knew what that felt like.

After ten minutes of rigorous questioning on a Friday night when he’d been trying very hard to finish a History essay so he wouldn’t have to do it over the weekend, William finally blew up and said the one thing that he had been sure would lose his friendship. “I’m not going with you on weekends, Emerson, because I’m gay and I’m tired of listening to you all prattle on about naked women and calling Wallace a ‘fag’!”

He regretted it immediately after and waited patiently for Emerson to say something scathing and hateful, but he never did. He sat back, blinked a few times, looked William up and down, and said, “Really?” He nodded and Emerson scrunched his eyebrows together. “That girl in your last school?”

He shrugged nervously, “Experiment.”

“Really?”

He nodded again and for a moment Emerson was very silent, then he started nodding to himself. “Way to experiment. Ever been with a bloke?”

William grinned cheekishly. “You offering?”

Emerson shook his head. “Not really, just curious. You know, if you feel like coming with us this weekend, there’s another room to that bookstore we haven’t shown you yet.”

So, he went with them on Saturday, just for an hour or two and it turned out he’d been absolutely terrified of them finding out for next to no reason. Not that he went and told everyone, just Wallace and Perkins, who patted him on the back when he confessed to having had sex. They took him to the porn store and, despite his protests, threw him in the gay porn section and went in search of their own wank material.

In the end, William was very thankful to have friends who were not only understanding enough to accept him being gay, but willing to support it by lending him a few pounds to buy a postcard of a half-naked bloke for Tom, whom they dubbed his ‘boyfriend’ while they teased him at the restaurant.

Towards the end of the second month, William came in and Kingsley simply said, “I do hope you brought something to do, because I have papers to grade.” At first, it felt like a step backwards, but as he lay on the floor trying to work out difficult mathematical equations, William noticed that Kingsley wasn’t glancing over at him every few seconds with a curious look on his face, as though he wasn’t sure what William was doing there. He’d always done that before. Then it struck him. Kingsley had become so used to his presence that he could sit at the desk grading papers and not feel bothered by him.

By the last weekend in November, William had spent nearly every Saturday and Sunday with him for over eight weeks and he suddenly noticed that something had drastically changed. He was standing in front of the window next to the red curtain that he now knew covered the kitchenette, his hands clasped behind my back, bouncing on the balls of his feet. The grounds were covering with snow and William had been complaining that Manik, who had taken over as team captain when Baun graduated, needed to lay off the practices until the snow melted or the entire team would end up with pneumonia.

Usually, Kingsley reprimanded him for complaining, something that William found very fatherly and warming. His own father had lectured him about complaining many times, but it had always been more along the lines of ‘Be quiet, William,’ as apposed to Kingsley’s ‘Complaining solves nothing’ speech.

When Kingsley didn’t say anything, William looked back to ask what was wrong, but the moment he saw Kingsley’s face he knew exactly why he wasn’t talking. William only caught a momentary glimpse, because when Kingsley realized he’d turned around, he looked back down at his desk and started his lecture, but it was too late. He’d been staring at William with a glazed over, almost hungry expression on his face and he was staring far lower than the back of his head. He might as well have held up a sign over his head that read ‘I am looking at your ass and I like what I see.’

A small grin began to spread itself over William’s face and he turned back around to look at the snow.

Kingsley was looking at his ass. He liked his ass. Perhaps all hope wasn’t lost after all.

 

 

*****

 

 

There was apparently some unforeseen difference between wanting Kingsley to want him and knowing that he did, because it was suddenly very difficult to keep a straight face when his professor was around; where William had been comfortable and at ease in his presence, he was suddenly nervous and on edge. He couldn’t decide whether it would be best to simply tell Kingsley that he knew, or hint at it until he got the message. And then what if letting him know that he knew wasn’t the best course of action? What if that just scared him away?

It would be an entire week before he could speak to Kingsley alone and he spent the time trying to decide what he should do. He thought about calling Tanya and asking her, but the telephone was out of the question, due to the fact the entire school would be able to hear. Calling Tom for a five minute, fairly cryptic conversation was one thing, but calling Tanya to ask detailed questions about the best way to go about getting into his Professor’s trousers was another entirely. So, William settled back and thought some more.

By Thursday evening he’d come to the conclusion that he would have to just come out and say it. Of course, the prospect terrified him, but in the end he decided that if he could brave his fear of topiaries to get to the kitchen late at night, then he could certainly tell his Professor that he fancied him.

By Friday William was having trouble looking Kingsley in the eye during class and at meals he was too nervous to eat, so he stared down at his hands instead. Kingsley seemed concerned as William caught him glancing over a few times and when he did William had to fight not to blush. Emerson thought he was coming down with the flu and he didn’t bother to set him straight. Besides, what would he have said, ‘No, Emerson, I’m not sick, I’m considering propositioning a teacher, so if you don’t mind, I’ll just go back to wondering exactly how horribly he’s going to shoot me down’? He didn’t think even Emerson could be understanding enough to take that well.

By Saturday morning William was petrified. Of course, he didn’t become petrified until he’d raised his hand to knock on Kingsley’s door, which left him standing in a hall looking rather silly, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. It was nearly a full minute before he was able to actually knock.

Kingsley opened the door and looked him over oddly, as though he expected William might fall over any moment. “Are you not feeling well?”

“Hm?” He shook his head to clear it. “Oh, no, I just have something on my mind, is all.”

William stepped in and Kingsley closed the door with a click that felt altogether too final. God, he was either going to die of embarrassment or be sick all over the floor.

“Well?” Kingsley turned around to face William. “You said there was something on your mind. Would you like to discuss it?”

“I...” Damn, but he was coward. “I suppose so.” Now he couldn’t really think of anything to say. “I was wondering...” _fancy a shag_? No, that really wasn’t going to work. For some indiscernible reason, he had a fleeting image of Father Mathis in his head and wondered what the Headmaster would say about all this.

Kingsley was looking at him expectantly and William said the first thing that came to his mind that didn’t have to do with them being naked in a bed... or on a couch... or the floor... or the desk chair might be interesting... or... _stop that_! “I was wondering if Father Mathis knew about my visiting you?”

“Of course.” William couldn’t help but be a little taken aback. He obviously hadn’t put very much thought into it, but it hadn’t crossed his mind that Father Mathis would approve of a student coming to visit a Professor in his private quarters outside of school hours. “In fact, Father Mathis was the one who suggested it.”

“He was?”

Kingsley had gone to sit at his desk and was absently talking while he looked over something. “Don’t get me wrong, despite my better judgment, I’ve actually come to enjoy your being here in some twisted, masochistic sort of way, but it was not my idea. I had been telling him that from what you had said I didn’t think you had a very healthy home life and he jumped on the fact that you were talking to me at all. Apparently, he and your old headmaster have been communicating about you. Headmaster...?”

“Headmaster Griggs.”

He nodded distractedly, “Yes, that’s right. He had told Father Mathis that he knew you disliked your parents and that they weren’t the most parental sort of people, but that he found it odd you had not bond with any of your teachers as a substitute. When Father Mathis found out that you had been talking to me about anything, let alone your parents, he told me to encourage you.”

“Oh.” William rocked on his heels for a moment trying to come up with something else to say. “So, Father Mathis knows that I snuck into your rooms?”

“No, I hardly thought it would do your transcript any favors to add breaking and entering.”

Of all the... he hadn’t actually broken anything. Entered, yes. Broken, no. And if Kingsley were so worried about William’s transcript, why did he still insist on giving him detention every other week? Unfortunately, thinking about the time he broke into Kingsley’s room, prompted images of the man standing naked in the doorway and William had to fight his penis as it threatened to rise to the occasion and give him away before he was ready. Not that he was ever going to be ready.

Kingsley stood up, walking to the kitchenette just behind him and started to fill a kettle with water.

“Kingsley?” Kingsley half turned to look at him and William bit the inside of his cheek. Oh, bloody hell, there was no way he was going to be able to actually say it. So, instead, he ‘threw caution to the wind,’ a phrase which Tom used very often to mean that he did something he probably shouldn’t have when he couldn’t think of any other way of doing it. William lifted onto the balls of his feet, steadied himself by putting his hands on Kingsley’s shoulders, and kissed him.

It was an awkward kiss. Kingsley was far too surprised to do anything about it for the first few seconds, which meant that William was able to step forward to press his body against him and slip his tongue into his mouth before the man began to regain his senses.

Kingsley’s cock twitched against his hips, just as he managed to pull himself together and push William away a bit more harshly than would have been necessary. William found himself breathless, his cheeks had to be tomato red and he couldn’t seem to open his mouth to actually say anything. Kingsley, however, did not have any such problem. “What do you think you’re doing?”

 _That was easy enough._ “Kissing you.”

Kingsley seemed slightly taken aback by the cheeky remark, but recovered quickly. “I bloody well noticed that.” William had never heard him curse before, but apparently there really was first time for everything. “Why?”

“You were looking at me last Sunday.”

“I look at you every Sunday, William, that doesn’t mean...”

“Looking at me _that_ way.”

“What way?”

“The way I’ve been looking at you all term.”

Kingsley pushed aside the tea tins on the shelves of the kitchenette, pulled out a bottle of something that was decidedly not school appropriate, and took a large gulp before turning back to face him. “You have not been staring at me like that all term.”

“Oh, yes, I have.”

“Not like that!”

The flush in William’s cheeks that had begun to die out was coming back, but this time it was with determined anger. “But you did notice I was staring.”

“Yes, I noticed, but I assumed it was curiosity. You seem to have it in abundance.”

“You know what they say about assuming.”

Kingsley narrowed his eyes. “Yes, I’m very well aware.”

He let go of the bottle, which he had been clutching rather desperately and turned away again. “Go to your dorm.”

“No.”

“Go!”

William wanted to argue further, but it looked as though Kingsley were about to lose control, so he grabbed his bag off the floor and slammed the door behind him, knowing at least half the school heard as he charged up the stairs to his bed. He’d give him the day to think it over, but Kingsley wasn’t getting rid of him that easily.

 

 

*****

 

 

Kingsley didn’t answer his door on Sunday and William wasn’t in the mood to make a scene, so he went into town with Emerson and tried to pretend he wasn’t moping. Wallace seemed to have figured out that something was going on, because he kept sneaking suspicious glances at him, but he didn’t say anything and William wasn’t about to volunteer information. Emerson just thought he was lovesick for his boyfriend and Pierce didn’t think much of anything, because Pierce respected people’s privacy.

It was an altogether depressing day and the next few didn’t fair any better. Wednesday evening, William decided he’d had enough. He knew Kingsley didn’t go to sleep until an hour or so after lights out, so he waited until it sounded like nearly everyone was asleep and snuck down the stairs.

He didn’t think going into Kingsley’s room without knocking again was a particularly _good_ idea, it was just that he thought knocking at nine in the evening when the rest of the school was dead quiet was a decidedly _bad_ one. He put his ear to the door and couldn’t hear anything, but then Kingsley wasn’t a very noisy person, so that didn’t mean much.

Taking one last nervous look down the hall, William opened the door and slipped in. Kingsley was sitting at his desk and had looked up when he’d heard the door open. William froze up at the look of utter disbelief on his Professor’s face and it was a good few seconds before he was able to close the door behind him. Kingsley continued to stare without saying anything and William became increasingly more uncomfortable. Maybe he’d been wrong? Maybe now hadn’t been the best time to come and see him? Too late.

He tried to smile, but it came out as more of a grimace. “Hello?”

“Hello?!” Kingsley stood up from his desk and tightened his bathrobe around himself. Oh, he was wearing a bathrobe. William looked down at his feet and was slightly disappointed to see pants underneath it. But still, bed clothes, that was something.

William really couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say, so he nodded. “Yes, hello. It’s a form of greeting used...”

“I know what ‘hello’ is. Do not get cheeky with me.”

Before he could stop himself. “But I like being cheeky with you.”

Kingsley was positively livid. “Leave, William, before I make you.”

William moved away from the door and toward the center of the room, as though that would make it more difficult. “I just want to talk.”

“We can talk on Saturday if I’m not still angry with you.”

“But, I... ow!” Kingsley grabbed his arm and twisted it rather violently as he dragged William to the door. “Let go!”

The next thing William knew he was literally on his ass in front of the door and he wanted nothing more than to pound on it, insisting that Kingsley let him back in, but that wasn’t going to get him anywhere. He ignored the more sensible part of brain telling him this hadn’t exactly done any good either, except that now he knew Kingsley wore dark blue pajama pants to bed.

Well, fine, he’d let him alone till Saturday, but on Saturday they were going to talk whether he was angry or not.

 

 

*****

 

 

Of course, by the time Saturday morning had rolled around William was feeling a little less brave about charging into Kingsley’s quarters with or without his permission, but, as luck would have it, he was also too stubborn to care. The good thing about weekends was that the teachers were often out in the town as well, so there really wasn’t anyone there to worry about whether or not William was knocking on a teacher’s door.

He knocked softly and was very relieved when Kingsley answered, though the look on his face didn’t do anything to cheer William up. He was apparently still angry about Wednesday. William slipped in past him and stood patiently in the center of the room, waiting for him to begin his lecture and assign detention. Instead, Kingsley sat down at his desk and waved his hand towards the sofa where William supposed he should sit as well.

He’d never really sat on the furniture much before. Usually, Kingsley stayed at his desk and William used the floor next to the coffee table and that was that, but he wasn’t about to argue. Instead of a lecture, however, Kingsley began grading papers and any protests died in William’s throat before they started. The room was utterly silent for nearly minutes before Kingsley finally looked up from what he was doing and swiveled his chair around, crossing his legs in a very authoritarian posture. “So.”

William hung my head, suddenly feeling five-years-old. “So, what?”

“Explain exactly what was going through your head last Saturday,” _oh... so maybe he wasn’t so angry about Wednesday_ , “and what possessed you to come to my room on a Wednesday evening, after lights out, without my permission, and you’ll be having detention for that on Tuesday.”

He suppressed a groan. “I only came on Wednesday because I didn’t think you’d let me in today.”

“I have.”

“I realize that.” William sighed deeply. “I... I kissed you because I like you.” The blood was rushing to his cheeks and other parts. Why did the teenage body have to be so entirely unpredictable? He was in the middle of one of the most embarrassing moments of his life and it was apparently excited about it. “I like you a lot and I know that you like me...”

“What makes you think that I like you?”

His blush deepened. “Besides the fact I caught you staring at my arse? You started to get... excited when I kissed you, so...”

Kingsley cut him off by raising his hand, his own cheeks were turning pink. William couldn’t help the crooked smile that was making its way onto his face. He could tell by Kingsley’s face that he was very much dead on.

“William, you are an attractive seventeen-year-old boy. You should find someone your own age to mess around with.”

If Kingsley really thought that was going to deter him, he had another think coming. In fact, William really only heard one thing in that entire sentence that made any sense. “You find me attractive?” Kingsley winced. “It’s alright if you do, because I find you attractive, too. And I have messed around with boys my own age but I want you.”

“William, you don’t know what you want.”

William stood and Kingsley mirrored him, looking far more intimidating when he should. It was a good thing William was too caught up in the moment to notice. “I want you.”

“Sit down.”

He stepped forward and Kingsley stepped back against the wall, exquisitely trapped, if angry. He looked like he was having some great internal conflict, which William didn’t doubt he was. William was his student and he wasn’t exactly one for rule breaking.

“William, sit down so we can talk.”

He stopped, just in front of Kingsley, and looked through half lidded eyes. Kingsley was staring down at him with that same hungry expression again and William lifted up on his toes to kiss him. It took him longer to come to his senses this time. This time William managed to slip his arms around Kingsley’s neck and get in a good few seconds of tongue massaging that wasn’t entirely one sided before Kingsley broke the mood, before he worked his hands between them and pressed William back desperately.

“William, I slept with you father.”

He said it so quickly that for a moment William wasn’t sure if he’d said it at all. When it occurred to him that he had, William took a few steps back, trying to hide the disgust from his face. “You what?”

“I slept with your father, in my seventh year. I cared for him deeply and if I have given you the wrong impression by staring at you, I apologize, William, but you do look so much like them both.”

 _But_... “My mother...?” His stomach twisted nauseously.

“That’s what she didn’t want you to know. That your father was gay...” he stopped himself, “well, bisexual at any rate. She didn’t want to tell you that, so she told you nothing. I was respecting her wishes.”

“What about what I have a right to know?”

Kingsley sat down heavily into his chair. “William, it happened a long time ago, I didn’t think, for even a moment that you were interested in boys, let alone me. For god’s sake, you were kicked out of your last school for copulating with a girl.”

“I was experimenting.” He couldn’t keep the defensive tone from his voice, but the thought wasn’t helping his stomach any.

He didn’t wait for Kingsley to respond. He didn’t think he wanted to know, he just needed to get out, to breathe. He couldn’t breathe when he was looking at Kingsley and seeing his father and... oh god, the last thing he’d needed just then was a visual.

Kingsley started to say something as William walked past to leave, but he didn’t wait to hear it. He didn’t even close the door behind him, because he was going to be sick and he didn’t want to do it in front of Kingsley. He just needed to think. He needed to throw up and then think and sort things out in his head so that they made sense. He needed to be alone.


	9. Chapter 9

Tanya would have said he was being a drama queen and that instead of sulking in bed, he should just go talk to him, but Tanya wasn’t there. Tanya and Tom, the only two other people in the entire world that knew he was head over heels in lust with his Professor were at Knox, probably eating candy and discussing her latest conquest.

So, instead of talking to someone about what Kingsley had told him and trying to clear his head as he would have usually done, William was forced to try and figure it out on his own. The only problem being that whenever the phrase ‘Kingsley had sex with my father’ popped into his head, he had the sudden urge to vomit, which made it very difficult to do much more than lie in bed and mope.

He couldn’t bring himself to go to dinner on Saturday and on Sunday morning all he managed was to pick through his breakfast. Instead of bothering with trying to eat lunch or dinner William committed himself fully to moping. By Monday morning he felt genuinely sick, so he decided not to attend classes.

It wasn’t until nearly midday that Wallace came looking for him. “You’re sulking.”

William looked at him sleepily before burying his head back into his pillow. “I have a headache, Wallace, go ‘way.”

He sat on the bed and William sat upright since he clearly wasn’t going away. Wallace thrust a napkin and three rolls into his hand forcefully. “You’ve a headache because you haven’t eaten. Go on, it’ll help.”

He bit into the first one petulantly. He really didn’t want to, but if it would make Wallace leave, then he would. Wallace waited till he’d gotten half way through before speaking. “You should talk to someone rather than sitting up here alone, you know.”

“It’s not the kind of thing people talk about.”

He slowly started to smile, which was eerie as Wallace didn’t do much of that. “You mean your crush on Professor Kingsley?” William choked on the roll and Wallace handed him a bottle orange juice that he must have nicked at breakfast as well. “I’m not blind, I’ve seen the way you look at him.”

William’s mouth opened and closed, but he couldn’t get anything to come out. Not that he had any clue what he would have said if he could. Wallace was outright grinning. “Emerson seems to think I’m clueless and I let him. It helps. Did you know that he’s looked at you the same way a few times, especially since you told him you were gay? I’d go so far as to say he’d consider it if you asked.”

Damn, William almost wished he’d known that sooner. It could have saved him three months of agonizing sexual frustration. Not that it did him any good now. Now he didn’t want to have random sex with just anyone, he wanted to have not-so-random sex with Kingsley.

William let loose the large sigh that had been threatening to come out for some time. Well, if he already knew. “He...” Wallace raised an eyebrow questioningly. “He told me that he slept with my father.”

“When?”

“Saturday.”

“No, not when did he tell you. When did he sleep with him?”

“When they were seventeen.” William shoved the last bite of roll in his mouth and grudgingly admitted to himself that it was doing some good. His headache had receded, but now his stomach was complaining.

“That all, then?”

William shook his head. “I think he slept with my mum, too.”

“When they were seventeen?”

He nodded, and started in on the second one.

Wallace thought on it for a moment in silence. “Well, at least he’s bi and a bit kinky from the sounds of it.”

“That’s not very funny.”

“I didn’t mean it to be. Look, so he shagged your dad years ago, it’s not like he’s asking you to go in for some father/son action. He was just being honest.”

“He was trying to scare me away!”

“And it worked.” Bloody hell, he was right. Kingsley had been trying to scare him away and William had put up no resistance. In fact, he’d played right into his hands and was agonizing over something that happened he didn’t even know how long ago.

William groaned and leaned against the headboard. “You’re right.”

“Exactly. Now what I suggest you do is get out of bed, go to class and suck on your pen for an hour.”

“Suck on my...?” He stopped talking as he realized what Wallace was insinuating. It wasn’t a half bad idea.

 

 

*****

 

 

Wallace was right. William was wrong. It was a hard concept to swallow because, like most teenagers, he did not like the idea of being wrong. Kingsley had been trying to scare him away and he’d let him. Now he had to think of a way to get back at him, because, again like most teenagers, William did not like being played for a fool.

But Wallace had done something other than just point out the obvious, and that was to give him an idea for his revenge. It was brilliant and he ate dinner that evening with a devious grin that Emerson said gave him the willies. William wanted to seduce Kingsley, and the two times he’d tried to do so in an open and honest fashion he had been kicked out. Well, if Kingsley wasn’t going to accept open honesty, William would have to resort dirty, underhanded trickery, because he was most certainly not going to give up.

He dug his spoon into his ice cream obstinately and looked over at the teachers’ table. Kingsley didn’t look at him right away, but just as he was beginning to think he wouldn’t at all, his face tipped subtly upward. William met his eyes and held them for a moment before very slowly sticking the spoon in his mouth and rolling his eyes back. He let his face melt into sublime pleasure for just a moment and then pulled the spoon out, making sure that Kingsley was still watching.

When he’d finished his display, he looked around quickly to make sure that no one else had noticed and gave Kingsley a nod as the Professor shifted uneasily in his seat.

Let the games begin.

 

 

*****

 

 

William had never realized how many different kinds of food could be eaten sexually. There was fruit, cake, ice cream, he was having some difficulty with muffins, but with soup he could lick his spoon, and sausage was ludicrously easy. Of course, it wasn’t just food, either. He could suck on a pen in class, or drum his fingers along his thigh when he knew Kingsley was looking. That one drove his Professor straight into his chair for the rest of class.

The unfortunate result of his little displays was that they weren’t just affecting Kingsley. William was getting hard at inappropriate times and there wasn’t very much that he could do about it. At dinner on Thursday he got desperate enough that he actually considered tossing off under the table (it wouldn’t of taken very long), and on Friday morning he nearly jumped Emerson in the showers, consent be damned. The only thing that saved him was that he really, really wanted Kingsley and he was dead set on getting him. Soon.

William had wanted to give Kingsley a day alone to mull it all over, so despite his urgency, he somehow managed not to go see him on Saturday and instead took a brief trip into town for candy and supplies before spending the rest of the day sweating on the snow covered Lacrosse field with Manik to help train the newer players. He was beginning to feel very sorry for the younger years who’d thought joining lacrosse would be ‘fun,’ because Manik didn’t seem to believe in letting them learn as they went and instead drilled them every other weekday as well as one day out of the weekend. Not that they weren’t getting better, but he half feared a few of them were beginning to think that it wasn’t worth it.

However, the practice, no matter how bitterly cold, did help to make him feel a little more refreshed the next morning, and by afternoon he’d decided it was time. He’d tried being nice, he’d given him hints, he’d all but propositioned him with his blatantly sexual stunts, and he’d given him a whole day to himself to decide how to handle it. It was time to up the anty, as it were.

There were apparently a great many things William did not know about Wallace, indeed, a great deal of things that no one knew about him. This included that he was a devious little bugger at the best of times. He never talked much, he always either helped people do their homework or outright did it for them, and he was forever taking Emerson’s shite with hardly a complaint, and he did it all to keep them off guard.

William really wished Wallace had opened up to him sooner, because this new side of him was very intriguing. It was like watching someone with a split personality. One minute he was begging Emerson to stop making faggot comments, the next he leaned over to William and said that he’d seen Emerson sneaking a look at his gay porn that morning. Of course, his constant banter about Emerson’s bi-curious tendencies were a little disturbing. It was almost as though he were trying to get them together, but whatever the reason for his opening up to William he seemed to find nothing wrong with supporting his efforts to shag Kingsley.

According to Wallace there had been a rumor floating around a few years ago that would be of particular use to him.

It went like this: Professor Renauld Kingsley had been celibate for at least nine years. Apparently, the two boys that lived next door to him had attended the school for a time and said that during summer vacation the man quite literally never left his estate. In fact, he never left the manor itself and never received visitors. So, unless he had someone chained up in there, he wasn’t getting _any_. This had exactly the effect Wallace had thought it would. William was ecstatic. Not many men can go celibate for almost a decade and refuse sexual advances for very long. It just wasn’t possible.

So, Sunday found him very cheerfully walking down the empty corridors of St. Christoff’s towards a goal that he knew couldn’t be far off. Of course, there was always the question of whether Kingsley would even let him in. He had gone to such great lengths to keep himself from temptation, that William was half afraid he might just lock the door and refuse to see him. There was only one thing for it, really. He’d just have to go in without knocking and catch him off guard. Again.

It took a few deep breathes to steady himself, but the look of utter disbelief on Kingsley’s face as he nonchalantly walked in and shut and locked the door before taking a seat on the sofa was most definitely worth it. It looked like he couldn’t decide between anger and shock. William grabbed a pillow and thrust it between his open legs, folding his arms over it to make himself more comfortable.

“Hello.”

Kingsley settled on furious and William contemplated going back outside to knock, but he doubted it would make any difference, so he continued with his plan.

“Sorry about yesterday, I had some things to take care of.” _Buying condoms, lubricant, having a good wank..._ “How was your day?”

“Do you get some kind of cheap thrill out of barging in here?” Well, look at that, he’d gotten his voice and his sense of indignation back.

“Oh, no, of course not. I get my cheap thrills out of picturing you naked.”

Kingsley made to stand up, but apparently realized that wasn’t such a good idea. William only got the barest glimpse of the slight bulge in his Professor’s trousers before he sat back down. “That is entirely inappropriate.”

“Oh, no, see you’re wrong there, too.” He was having way too much fun and even though the situation may have called for it, he wasn’t even the slightest bit flushed. Perhaps it had something to do with giving up the concepts of shame and dignity. “That was improper, if anything. Inappropriate was what I did in the shower last night.”

“William, I do not know what kind of game you think you’re playing...”

William scoffed rather than outright interrupt him, but it had the same effect. “It’s not a game, Professor.” He drew ‘Professor’ out in a sensual sort of way he’d heard Tanya use more than once and watched Kingsley shift uncomfortable in his chair.

“Do not call me that.” His voice had gone up an octave. William figured he must have been doing a right good job of making him aroused if his voice were changing. Of course, the now prominent bulge in his pants had been something of a hint, as well.

“Kingsley.” William sat the pillow down beside him, ignoring the way Kingsley jumped ever so slightly when he moved. It was incredibly amusing that he could be so intimidated by something so much smaller than him simply because it wanted to sleep with him.

“What you need, is to relax.” Kingsley said nothing. “You need to sit back,” William leaned back lewdly on the sofa, “loosen your collar,” he reached up and tugged on his already open collar, “take off you shirt.” He slowly unbuttoned it, watching Kingsley very carefully for any sign that he might break.

Kingsley hadn’t moved a single muscle, he’d even somehow managed to stop twitching. If William weren’t careful, he might just drive him into shock induced catatonia. He tossed the shirt carelessly at Kingsley’s feet and sat back. “Now, isn’t that better?”

He had no idea whether it was the shirt, the question, or William’s smirk that did it, but Kingsley stood from his seat and marched across the room. For the briefest of moments William thought he might actually jump him, but instead he was hauled across the room and thrust out the door.

For a full two minutes William just stood there, shirtless and confused. When he finally did come to his senses it was too late, Kingsley had already locked the door. He banged on it a few times, demanding Kingsley open up and at least let him get his shirt, but he seemed damned and determined to ignore him.

Well, fine, but that wasn’t going to get him anywhere. William happened to be a very accomplished lock pick, otherwise he never would have gotten into the west wing of the Bryce estates in the first place, and no mere lock was going to keep him from shagging Kingsley... and getting his shirt back.

 

 

*****

 

 

Unfortunately, his dear Kingsley had invested in a lock that was far superior to the half rusted antique guarding the west wing of the manor. It was less than two weeks till Christmas holidays and William couldn’t see how he was going to get anywhere when the entire school was filled with people that could, at any moment, walk down the hall and catch him kneeling in front of Kingsley’s door trying to jimmy it. So, he called Tom and told him that he would be staying over Christmas holiday because things weren’t ‘going as planned.’ William got some odd looks from students filing up the stairs, but luckily no one asked him anything.

Wallace offered to stay behind as well, but William told him not to bother. There was a very good chance that Kingsley would kill him for several of the stunts he was planning and Wallace had been such a great help as of recent that William didn’t want to take him down with him.

Emerson and Perkins seemed to find it incredibly interesting to turn his life into a soap opera of sorts and he hadn’t had the heart to tell them it was actually very dull for the most part. They’re original theory was that William had a fall out with his ‘boyfriend.’ Then they thought he might be having an affair with someone in the school and he was staying behind to have time alone with them; but as the list of stay-behinds included four second years, Father Mathis, Professor Kingsley, and himself, they had revised this to him having an affair with someone in town.

His current love-life, however, was not the only thing that interested them; Emerson was dead set on getting the sordid details of who he’d slept with.

“Who?”

“I’m not telling.”

“So, he still goes here?”

Wallace had stayed in that day to go to the library and do research for a Latin paper, and Emerson and William had gone outside to sit on the benches in the field and do their homework while Perkins practiced with the football team. “Not necessarily.”

“So, he’s graduated?”

William glared. If he pushed him off fight then there was at least a minimal chance he could pass it off as an accident. “Fine, yes, Emerson, he’s graduated.”

He looked back down at his homework and momentarily considered trading facts about his sex life for answers to some of the math problems, but Emerson was most likely as stuck on it as he was, so that wouldn’t do him much good.

“Was he on the lacrosse team?”

“Emerson!”

“What?! I’ve always wondered about them. There’s something suspicious about prancing around a shower with a bunch of sweaty, naked men three days a week.”

 _Oh, for the love of..._ “Emerson, you prance around the shower with a bunch of naked men nearly every night.”

“Yes, but we aren’t sweaty.”

William stared at him, open mouthed. Emerson’s logic was often a bit off, but he usually had good intentions.

“So, who was it?”

“Em...!” He raised an eyebrow cockily and William could actually feel himself caving. _Damnit_. “You promise you won’t tell?”

“Only Perkins and Wallace.”

“Wallace knows.”

“You’d tell Wallace before you’d tell me?”

“Wallace can keep his mouth shut.”

Emerson started to argue, but stopped and nodded instead. “Right, that’s fair. So, I promise it stays between the four of us.”

William took a deep breath and forced it out before he could stop himself. “Baun.”

Emerson’s mouth quite literally dropped open. “Your Lacrosse captain?!”

His quickly looked down at the bench to hide his blush.

“You slept with your lacrosse captain? Where? No, wait, don’t tell me. You had sex in the locker room, didn’t you?” William buried his face in his hands in a sad attempt to cover how beat red he was. Emerson chuckled, “You did. You right little tart!”

He sat up and shoved Emerson for the insult, but didn’t put any real force behind it, because when it came down to it, he really was a bit of a tart. He’d only come to terms with being gay a year ago and already he’d slept with the captain of his team, his best friend, and was now fervently trying to shag his English Professor. Tart was being nice.

When Perkins came off the field, Emerson didn’t even have the decency to wait until William had cleared off to tell him about Baun. Perkins didn’t seem very surprised. In fact, all he had to say was, “Knew there was something about him,” before heading into the showers to clean up.

When William had gone to Knox, Tom and Tanya had always stayed for winter holidays if he did and it had always been a relief not to have to be alone for several weeks. Thanks to Emerson’s nagging, Perkin’s speculations, and Wallace’s suggestive comments, by the time he was seeing them off to the train, William was relieved. He couldn’t wait to just sit on his bed for a few minutes and enjoy the silence... before trying to sneak into Kingsley’s quarters. Unfortunately, he ended up staring at the ceiling and out the window for several hours while he waited for the majority of the staff to leave.

He’d spent the last few weeks doing two things, avoiding Emerson’s questions and planning operation ‘Shag Professor Kingsley’ - ‘Desperate’ for short. After much stealth work (meaning that he’d grilled Father Mathis and his other Professors for information under the guise of curiosity) William had learned that it was rare for students to stay over holidays at St. Christoff’s; Father Mathis couldn’t seem to explain why and William had feigned ignorance. This year there was an unheard of total of five students. Despite Father Mathis’s panic at the number, William was relieved. He could dodge four boys who didn’t even share a dorm on the same floor as himself, and Father Mathis’s quarters were on the other side of the school and one floor up from Kingsley’s, which meant that he was pretty much free to try anything short of screaming at him through the door.

When the last person had left (a Professor Deering that William hadn’t even had the occasion to shake hands with), it was all he could do not to run down the stairs and start pestering his poor secluded Professor immediately. The only thing stopping him was that he was less likely to get caught if he waited until the Headmaster had gone to sleep.

He expected to at least see Kingsley at dinner, where he’d planned several very subtle ways to get his attention, such as brushing his leg against his under the little table in the kitchen that they would all be eating, but Kingsley seemed to have guessed the reason for his staying behind because he didn’t show. Father Mathis noticed William’s disappointment and assured him that Kingsley had simply come down with a little flu and would be back on his feet in no time.

 _Flu my arse._ He ate leisurely, deciding that it was best not to stir suspicion by rushing himself, and chatted in what he hoped was an idle enough fashion.

The four boys were Samuel Trenton, Ronald Greens, and Greg and Barney Parish. They’re parents all worked for the same company and they had gone to all the same schools for as long as they could remember. When the Parish family had been transferred to Germany just before the boys were to start first year, they’d decided to send them to St. Christoff’s so they could be with their friends. The trip between Germany and England had been too long for them to take for winter holiday, so Trenton and Greens had decided to stay behind as well to keep the Parish twins company.

Father Mathis made a very boring little speech about friendship and family, and how they needed both in their lives before dismissing them to go have their two hours of free time before bed. Since William couldn’t really think of anything constructive to do, he went out to the lawn just in front of the school and spotted the boys while they played a mock game of football in the half-light coming from the windows until they were told to come inside.

By the time the lights had been turned out and he was fairly certain the others were at least in bed, William was so exhausted that he momentarily considered going to sleep and continuing his crusade in the morning. As luck would have it, he was, if nothing else, persistent and managed to force himself out from under the sheets and into his shoes.

During the evening the halls of St. Christoff’s were usually lit by little nightlights every few feet, in case there was an emergency. Apparently Father Mathis believed that emergencies did not happen over winter holiday and had therefore not turned them on.

It had never occurred to him how dark a very long, windowless hallway could be. Had it not been for the miniscule amount of moonlight streaming in from under the closed doors he would not have been able to see his hand in front of his face. He didn’t dare to take the main stairs in case the echo of his feet on the tile woke the Headmaster, but the side stairwell, thankfully, had large windows at each floor, otherwise he might have broken his neck trying to get down it.

As William had presumed, Kingsley still had his door locked, but he’d made the mistake of leaving his light on, which meant he was most likely still awake. William looked around once before tentatively knocking on the door. To his surprise, Kingsley opened it.

“Father Ma...” He looked down at William for a moment, as though sizing him up, before he found his voice. “You are not Father Mathis.”

“Observant, that.” Kingsley went to close the door and it turned out that sticking his foot in a door when it was being slammed shut was a very bad idea. “Bloody...!”

William fell to the ground, clutching his ankle. Kingsley knelt down and waited until he’d managed to get a grip on the pain before starting in on him. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“If you hadn’t been avoiding me I wouldn’t be so desperate.”

Kingsley took his arm to help him stand, but despite his gentle grip there was no mistaking the annoyed tone of his voice. “I’ve not been avoiding you.”

“You have too!” William was caught off guard by the slight echo of his voice in the empty hall and lowered it to a hiss. “You haven’t answered your door and you won’t call on me in class or give me detention...” He trailed off as Kingsley put an arm around his waist to help support him and little shivers of pleasure shot up his spine, mixing with the stabbing pain. _Oh, bloody hell_.

He leaned heavily on him as Kingsley helped him limp through the door and sat him on the sofa. He lifted William’s leg onto his coffee table and William tried very hard to stay mad at him; Kingsley was only helping him because he had to, so there was no reason to get all fluttery in the stomach every time he touched him.

Kingsley very slowly untied his shoe and wiggled it off. “Move your toes.” He did so, cringing in pain. “Not broken, then.”

He went over to the sink to wet a washcloth, laying it over William’s foot. “Explain yourself.”

“I’m not the one who has explaining to do. I’m not the one who slept with my father and then decided to tell me because I couldn’t handle being flirted with by me.”

It occurred to him exactly how ridiculous that had sounded, but he didn’t have time to take it back. “No, you didn’t, because that would require the use of time travel and a paradox that many argue would unravel time itself; but that is beside the point.” _Smart arse._ “The point is that you have snuck around after lights out, come to my quarters, tricked me into answering my door...”

“I didn’t trick you, I knocked.”

“Do not interrupt me.” Out of habit, William obeyed. “You should not be out of your dorm room after lights out and while I can not give you detention for it I will have to find some way to punish you.”

 

“I can think of a few.” William didn’t even realize what he’d said until it was too late and Kingsley looked both furious at the suggestion and shocked, probably because it turned him on. And it had turned him on – there are some things that can hide a growing erection, but thin cotton pants aren’t among them.

Kingsley’ ears turned an attractive shade of red as he looked again at William’s ankle, but it was too late, William’s confidence had gotten the boost it needed. If Kingsley weren’t attracted to him, if he weren’t interested, he wouldn’t have anything to hide. “Kingsley...”

“You should leave.” His voice had lost none of its harsh edge, but his face, or what William could see of it, seemed to be pleading. It was too bad for him William didn’t feel like showing mercy.

“I don’t want to. I want to talk to you, I want you to listen.”

He sat on the sofa, as far from William as possible and continued to look away. “And what, exactly, do you want to say.” Now he sounded resigned, which meant Kingsley was willing to listen and William should have been happy about that.

Of course, he didn’t have time to be happy as he was suddenly very nervous for absolutely no reason at all. The man knew he like him. William had taken his shirt off in front him. He’d kissed him twice. He’d very nearly been kissed back. So what, in God’s name, did he have to be nervous about?

“About... that I like you and that you like me and...”

Kingsley looked up sharply, his face and voice deadpan. “You presume too much.”

“Only because I know I’m right.”

He gawked, as if William had just told him he was the Queen of England. “And how, exactly do you know you’re right?”

_If he really must know._

William leaned over and pressed his lips to Kingsley’s, not an easy move, seeing as he was a good few feet away from him, but William thought if he’d taken the time to scoot over Kingsley would have stood up. When he didn’t move away, William deepened it, but at the first touch of tongue to his, Kingsley pulled back and stared at him with open shock.

“Why...”

With what little courage he had left, William put his hand on Kingsley’s thigh and brushed his fingers over his Professor’s half erect cock. “You wanted to know.”

He thought Kingsley was going to jump and run, wouldn’t have blamed him if he had, but instead of freezing or doing any of the other things he had been doing for the last month, Kingsley surprised him yet again. Before William even realized what was happening, the man had his face in his hands and his tongue in his mouth and all William could see were his closed eyes and the tips of his thumbs pressing into his cheek.

William sat perfectly still for half a second, wondering if it were real or some vivid day dream, but he could actually feel Kingsley’s tongue in his mouth. He could taste him; he tasted like wine and a funny kind of sharp cheese. His teeth brushed against William’s lip and then bit softly down as he pulled away, just slightly before diving back in.

God, he was going to suffocate, but William was afraid to breathe. Afraid that at any moment now Kingsley would take it back and it would never have happened. Or worse, yet, never happen again. When he did pull back William wasn’t sure how long it had lasted.

“Go to your dorm?”

His voice was so cracked and desperate that William did as he asked.


	10. Chapter 10

William didn’t remember dreaming anything that night, just that he woke up at ten the next morning with a hard-on and was extremely grateful that for the first time in a year-and-a-half he would have privacy in the showers. His foot still hurt quite a bit, but after the first hour or so he was able to walk around without limping, which helped him avoid the awkwardness of having to come up with an excuse as to why his foot looked like he’d stuck it in the way of a closing door.

Kingsley showed up for breakfast, pale and slightly sick, and avoided looking at him. The one time William did manage to make eye contact Kingsley looked so guilt ridden that he couldn’t bring himself to do it again, not because he wasn’t ruthless enough – he would have done anything, no matter how underhanded, for another kiss like that – but because when William saw that guilt, he knew Kingsley regretted it and that hurt.

When it was finally time to go see him again, William had to remind himself that curling up in his bed and pouting would be counterproductive and that he had to suck it up and move on. It was a matter of finding out what Kingsley’s reservation was and removing it.

So, he forced himself up and into a pair of loose fitting jeans that Tom had thought made him look ‘adorable’ and a shirt that he’d said set off William’s eyes and headed down the stairs as stealthily as possible. He hadn’t worn shoes this time, in the hopes that he’d make less noise. It must not have worked as well as he’d hoped, though, because Kingsley opened the door before William even had a chance to knock.

“Sit.” His face was set and determined, an expression William hadn’t seen since before they started having weekend visits.

William raised an eyebrow, but sat on the couch, trying not to look anxious or amused. When he opened his mouth to say something, perhaps ‘hello,’ or ‘how are you this evening?’ Kingsley cut him off. “This has to stop.”

Logically, William had known this was coming, but he’d really, really hoped he’d be wrong. “What has to stop?” _Oh great work, play innocent and piss him off some more_.

“Don’t play innocent with me!” His voice had risen and William silently congratulated himself on interpreting his response correctly, while trying to think of something he could say to calm him down.

“But I like playing with you.” Oh, bloody hell, his mouth was entirely out of control. William put his hands over it and literally bit his tongue in an effort to keep from saying anything else that was likely to get him thrown out.

His eyes narrowed dangerously and William shrugged, deciding he should say something before Kingsley did. “I’m sorry. I really am; I just couldn’t help it.”

“Just like your father.”

“Not according to you. According to you, I’m just like my mother, or isn’t that what you’re always saying?”

Kingsley twitched, but didn’t argue any further. Instead, he took several deep, calming breathing, sat at the end of his desk, and folded his hands professionally. William had to bite his tongue again. He knew what Kingsley was going to say, even if he didn’t want to hear it. “William, we need to discuss your behavior and mine.”

It was his turn to be hostile, because William really did not like being told no. “What about it?”

Kingsley purposefully ignored his tone, continuing as if he hadn’t spoken. “What happened last night should not have happened and will _never_ happen again.”

“Didn’t you enjoy it?”

He looked slightly taken aback, but recovered quickly. “Whether or not I enjoyed it has nothing to do with this discussion. I am forced to admit that you have a... a crush on me, but you’ll have to get over it.”

“I’ll not, because it isn’t just some silly little crush.” It was a crush last year, it was liking him over the summer, missing him, thinking about him every day, but now it was something more and William may not have been ready to put a name to it, but if he was forced, he would.

“You’re a child. You can’t understand what you’re asking for.” His tone was so gentle and reprimanding that he might as well have been speaking to a four-year-old asking for more chocolate.

“I do. I’m asking you to care about me.”

“And I can’t.”

“You mean you _won’t_.”

“William...”

“No!” He sat up and Kingsley did as well, surprise written on his face. “Don’t patronize me! I have more than a crush on you, I want more than sex. Sex was just...” god, was he really saying this? “...an easy way to get what I wanted.”

It was true, though, wasn’t it? If all he’d wanted was sex he couldn’t have abided sitting in the room listening to Kingsley talk, being unable to touch him. He would have done something, rather than waiting for him to show some sign that Kingsley was attracted to him.

Kingsley stood up and began pacing, his face creased in worry. “You want a father figure. I can understand that, but...”

“I already have a father, and I’d rather not have another, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Tell me what you think you want, then; if not simply sex or a father figure, then what?” He was exasperated, but, to his credit, he wasn’t losing his temper. William had never seen Kingsley this calm about anything before; except, perhaps, when he talked about William’s mother.

“I want you.” William had to think hard, because until now he’d never put a name to his feelings, or made a list of what he liked about him, he just knew he did. “You talk to me about things no one else will talk to me about. You listen to me unconditionally, even when I’m talking about Lacrosse, which I know for a fact you have no interest in. You’re fair with me, you show me no favoritism. You yell at me all the time...”

“You want me to yell at you?” He seemed taken aback by the idea. William had no doubt Kingsley was wondering if he’d inadvertently done something he deemed inappropriate.

“It turns me on.” Now he was horrified and... something else that William couldn’t quite discern. “Don’t look at me like that. It isn’t as though it’s ever happened before. I don’t get turned on when Father yells at me, just you, which proves that I don’t think of you like him. I do want to... to have sex with you. I do find you attractive.”

It was getting harder and harder to force himself to speak and Kingsley was becoming more and more horrified, which William supposed meant that he was saying the right things. He stopped speaking to allow Kingsley a moment, even if it was self-defeating. He should have just gone on until he caved, but something wouldn’t let him. He had to make him see that it was alright for him to want this, because that seemed to be the bigger issue.

After a few moments of pacing, Kingsley caught up with himself and turned to look at William again. “This is lust, William, nothing more and you are not old enough, nor experienced enough to know the difference.”

“It’s not lust!” William stood, enraged that Kingsley had disregarded everything he’d just said, all the feelings he had shared with him. “I lusted after Baun, we had sex and it meant nothing. I liked Tom, it was nice, but it meant little. I don’t just lust after you. If all I wanted was a quick shag I could have had one by now, but instead I’ve waited nearly four bloody months for you! I’m seventeen-years-old, do you know how hard that was?!”

“You are just like David, you selfish, manipulative little...”

“If I’m so much like my father, then it shouldn’t be so hard for you to fuck me, should it?!”

He’d been moving towards Kingsley the entire time, a fact he wasn’t aware of until they were practically nose to nose and Kingsley was staring down at him in what William thought was an expression of distaste.

Apparently, he was wrong. William opened his mouth to continue telling him off and ended up with a mouth full of tongue.

Kingsley yanked him forward, biting and sucking his lip hungrily before moving lower to the side of his neck, just behind his ear. William’s legs suddenly refused to support him as chills of pleasure shot up his spine and when it was apparent that he couldn’t stand any longer, Kingsley picked him up and sat him on the desk, pulling away only long enough to quite literally rip William’s shirt open.

William stared at Kingsley in a state of absolute shock. He was going through with it, he was... he was sucking his nipple! Well, William would be damned if he was going to sit there like some timid school girl and let Kingsley do everything. Besides, it might have given him the impression that he truly didn’t know what he was doing.

He reached between them and worked Kingsley’s trousers open, shoving his hand down them only to have Kingsley pull them right back out (William would have protested if the man’s tongue hadn’t been back down his throat) and shoved him onto his back on the desk. William had barely enough time to realize that he was probably laying on someone’s extra credit assignment before his trousers and underwear were pulled off in one over-enthusiastic tug and thrown violently across the room.

Damn, there had been a condom in there, and William highly doubted Kinsgley’d had the foresight to buy one himself, especially considering he hadn’t planned on having sex. Then again, if he had to stop long enough to put one on, he might stop all together. As it was, Kingsley was too caught up in exploring William’s shoulder with his mouth to have really thought much of anything.

William didn’t know if Kingsley taken his slacks off, or just shoved them down, all he knew was that they were gone and he was staring up at Kingsley’s disheveled hair with his knees bent over the man’s shoulders. Kingsley pulled a bottle out his top desk drawer and poured something clear and slick over his cock. Lubricant. William dug his finger nails into the desk as Kingsley hastily positioned himself and pushed forward. He didn’t go quickly, but he didn’t take it slow either, he pushed steadily forward, staring down at William with a strange the kind of intensity.

It hurt, not unlike his first time with Baun, however, Kingsley had used a good amount of lubricant and knew exactly what he was doing and what angle to take it at. Despite having not been prepared, by the time he was planted firmly inside the only thing William wanted was for him to move.

He wrapped his arms around Kingsley’s neck and bit his earlobe. “Fuck me.”

He only had to ask once. Kingsley pulled out and thrust in with long, deep strokes that had William gasping out his name and clutching at the back of his still buttoned shirt, ripping the fabric when he came, unable to form coherent thoughts.

Kingsley draped on top of him, spent; William couldn’t even recall him cuming, but he must have done because there was something warm trickling down his ass crack. Kingsley was perfect against him, sweaty and slightly sticky, but he was also much heavier and William ass was pressing into the edge of the desk painfully. “Kingsley?”

He didn’t answer, just sat up enough kiss William again, this time slow and lazy, his lips and tongue taking the time they hadn’t before to thoroughly ravish and explore his. When Kingsley finished William was utterly breathless and didn’t really care if he moved any time soon. _Besides_ , he reasoned, _the longer it takes him to move, the longer I could stay._

 

 

*****

 

 

William woke the next morning to the sound of someone moaning tiredly. For a moment he thought it was Emerson, who had a tendency to make odd noises just before waking, and started to tell him to quiet down, that other people were still trying to sleep, but upon opening his eyes, realized that he wasn’t in his dorm. He was in a large bed covered in dark grey sheets. Sitting up, William rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings curiously. Fortunately, sitting up attracted attention to the ache in his arse and he quickly remembered the night before.

Throwing himself back down on the bed, he covered his head with the sheets and tried to think. It could have been a dream, but dreams don’t generally leave him pleasantly sore, so it must have really happened. And if it really happened then he must be... he pulled the covers back and looked around the room again... in Kingsley’s quarters. He’d must have fallen asleep and Kingsley’d put him in bed, in _his_ bed. A quick glance over confirmed that he’d slept alone, much to his disappointment - if Kingsley hadn’t slept with him, he probably planned on putting up more resistance. Then again, if the resistance ended the way it had last night, William wasn’t so sure he minded.

Stretching languidly, he looked around the room for his clothes. His jeans and boxers were folded neatly on the bedside dresser, along with a shirt that didn’t look familiar. It took him a moment to remember that Kingsley had ripped his. Damn, he’d liked that shirt. He got dressed and stretched again for good measure, it wouldn’t do to go out there looking less than alert.

Quietly, William opened the door to the living room and peaked in. Kingsley was sitting at his desk, a cup of still steaming tea next to him, looking over papers with the accursed red pen in his hand. William stifled a laugh as Kingsley slashed through something on the page with particular malice.

Kingsley heard the muffles noise and looked up at the wall in front of him. “You’re awake.”

It wasn’t a question, so William didn’t answer. After a moment, Kingsley looked back down at the paper and he slipped through the door, closing it behind him. He marked through something else on the same page, not far from the last correction, and William was forced to admit that watching him butcher some random student’s homework was kind of sexy in an evil sort of way.

It felt rather like he was watching something he shouldn’t have, so William walked over to the kitchenette and pulled a mug down to distract himself.

“What are you doing?”

He nearly dropped the cup in surprise. “Making myself a cup of tea. You looked busy, so...”

“You should leave.”

“Why on earth would I want to do that?” If anything he was sort of looking forward to avoiding Father Mathis and his lectures on life and morality this morning. Honestly, at seventeen there was only so much he was willing to take.

“Because I expect that you’ll have realized the mistake you’ve made.”

William stared open-mouthed for nearly a full minute, before his brain caught up with and sorted out what he’d heard. “I’ve not!”

Kingsley still wasn’t looking up. Damn him. “You’re confused...”

“I’m not confused, but I am getting angry.” He slammed the mug on the counter for good measure. “You know, never mind, maybe I am confused, because I’ve just had the most brilliant sex, I begged for it even, and now you’re telling me that I didn’t really want it.”

Kingsley started to turn and then stopped, purposefully looking away. “You can’t possibly have wanted me to hurt you.”

“Hurt me?” What was he going on about?

“You’re neck, William.”

He threw a hand up to his neck defensively and stormed through the bedroom and into the bathroom. It was a very nice bathroom, actually, with a large tub and a sink with a giant, ornate mirror hanging above it, and wall paper with the fleur-de-lis in red printed all over it. If he hadn’t been so busy being indignant he would have been rather impressed.

Standing in front of the mirror, the first thing William noticed was that his neck wasn’t the only thing Kingsley had attacked the night before. He moved his hand to lovingly trace the handiwork. A trial of red flecked bite marks trailed from just behind his ear to down his chest. His right nipple was bright pink, slightly swollen, and extremely sensitive. In fact, he had to spend an extra few minutes willing away an erection and telling himself that wanking off in Kingsley’s bathroom was probably not a good idea.

When he finally came back into the living room, sans hard on, Kingsley had his head on his desk and was breathing deeply.

“Renauld?” They had slept together, so he should probably get accustomed to calling him by his given name. At least, in private. It still sounded strange, though.

Kingsley finally turned and William was struck by how betrayed he looked, like he truly expected William to run out of the room, crying to Father Mathis, because he’d given him a few love bites. William gave what he hoped was a winning smile. “I don’t mind.”

Kingsley narrowed his eyes and William couldn’t keep his smile from widening, despite the clear confusion. “I bit you.”

“You _marked_ me.”

He put his head back on the desk, exasperated.

William stepped towards him slowly, “I don’t regret it. In fact, I can’t wait to do it again, however, right now,” he put a hand on Kingsley’s shoulder and ignored the instant tension there, “I have to go take a shower, change my clothes, and if I’m lucky there will be something in the kitchen for me to eat.”

He kissed the back of Kingsley’s neck, lingering just long enough to let him know it wasn’t innocent, then swiveled around and walked out the door, feeling very proud of himself.

 

 

*****

 

 

Honestly, you’d think William was the one who’d ravaged Kingsley the night before. He didn’t show up at lunch and when he did make an appearance at dinner he kept skirting glances nervously in William’s direction, like he expected him to start an argument over their would-be sex life at the table. Either that or he was horrified at what William was doing with the pudding; it really could have gone either way.

The younger years had taken to clinging to William after dinner. They apparently thought that his mass detentions were a show of bravery and that he was trying to make a statement about the unfair treatment that Professor Kingsley heaped on them all. He didn’t have the heart to tell them that it was mostly down to bad timing, so he went outside with them again and gave them pointers while trying to decide his course of action for that evening.

William had told Kingsley it wasn’t just about sex, and he’d meant it, but he’d spent the entire evening lewdly licking pudding off his spoon and fighting the urge to touch himself, or Kingsley, under the table. Then again, he was a seventeen-year-old; they were notorious for their libidos and lack of self control. As it turned out, he wasn’t the only one.

He would never have taken Kingsley to be the randy sort of lover that couldn’t even be bothered to say ‘hello’ before shagging, but apparently he’ve been wrong. When William knocked on the door that evening, he was unceremoniously dragged in by his shirt, thrown against the wall, and ravished.

After nearly five minutes of heated kissing and groping, Kingsley pulled back and stared down at him, his breath coming out in short pants and his eyes clouded over with some indiscernible emotion.

“You’re far too young for this.”

 _Of all the... he throws me against the wall, molests me, and then has the nerve to protest?!_ It took William a few seconds to gather his thoughts enough to answer.

“But I am legal.”

Kingsley went back to kissing him heatedly, which suited William just fine. He was a little disappointed when Kingsley pulled back again after several minutes.

“You’re my student.”

“It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?”

He shoved his tongue back down William’s throat and he had to wonder if this was helping him think. He kind of liked that idea - kissing him helped Kingsley think. Maybe if he gave him a blow job it would help him grade papers.

“Father Mathis would have my job.”

“I’m not telling.”

His head tingled as Kingsley latched onto his neck and nipped it thoughtfully.

“This is... hardly proper.”

 _That was a weak one_. “Bugger propriety.” _On second thought._ “Bugger me.”

They didn’t even make it to the bedroom. They managed half way to the door, and unlike the night before it wasn’t frantic and over in ten minutes, it was almost an hour’s worth of foreplay until William’s throat was raw from begging to be taken and he lost track of how long Kingsley was inside him for, but knew he came twice and if he’d thought, for even a moment that the night before was the best sex that could possibly hope for, he knew now he was dead wrong.

Afterward, they lay on the floor, both of them breathless and currently unable to put a proper thought together. Eventually William scooted over and put his head on Kingsley’s shoulder, listening to his heart slowing down. “So, ready again in five?”

Kingsley gave him an incredulous look and William kissed him for the effort, ignoring his scathing looks. When William failed to stop smiling down at him, Kingsley put his hand on his head and pushed it down onto his chest, where he didn’t have to look at it.

“Obnoxious brat.”

“That you slept with.”

He grunted, but let go of William’s head in favor of draping an arm over his back. William breathed in the smell of him with a satisfied half-moan. “What are you thinking, Kingsley?”

“That you’re a great deal more like David than I’d thought.”

William looked up, hurt to no small extent at the thought he might actually be sleeping with him because of his father. “Were you thinking about him when I was on my knees?”

“Jealousy is an ugly thing, William.” He pushed his head back down again.

William bit his nipple and Kingsley smacked the back of my head just hard enough to hurt. Damn him, all he’d wanted to do was bask in the afterglow. He made a mental note to get revenge on him at some later date, when he wasn’t so utterly exhausted and spent.

“Did you sleep with my mum, too, then?”

William felt him nod his head. “I thought I’d made that abundantly clear. I slept with both your parents.”

“But you’re gay, right?”

“What part of my fucking you don’t you recall?” He could just see him quirking an eyebrow in the back of his mind.

Smiling contentedly for a moment, William wiggled his ass, enjoying the tender, thoroughly buggered sensation. “I got that. But if you’re gay how could you have slept with her?”

“You slept with Ms. Irving at your last school, I believe.”

“Iving, and that was different. I was making sure girls didn’t do anything for me. Besides, I’m seventeen, I could get it up for a lama if the opportunity presented itself.”

“How... flattering.”

William can’t help laughing at the distaste in his voice. “You’re hardly a lama.”

“No, indeed, and neither was your mother. I was about your age, William. Sex was sex, whether it be a girl or a boy. I preferred David, but it would have been social death for me to announce that I was gay. Not just for me, either, Adrianna would have been ostracized for having attached herself to me. It would have taken her years to overcome the shame.”

William made another mental note to thank his parents for never having introduced him into ‘proper society’ as it were. Sure, his mother attended functions and such and they’d occasionally made him go along, but he was never expected to socialize, never expected to make nice with the right people. “Was my father very mad?”

“You’re awfully curious this evening.”

“You’re an awfully good fuck.”

Kingsley smacked his hip and William grinned.

“David was livid. We’d been shagging for over a year, but school was about to end and I would be expected to ask Adrianna to marry me. When I told him I intended to follow through with it, he was so furious that he wouldn’t even speak to me.”

Sitting up, William stretched his arms over his head and looked down at Kingsley. He was absolutely perfect, his cheeks slightly flushed, his hair damp with sweat, his bare body sprawled out like a feast. _Hmm, speaking of feasts..._ Leaning down, William kissed his jaw, then his neck, then his chest.

Kingsley stared, open mouthed at his progress and despite his age and the fact that he’d only finished buggering him not half an hour before, he was responding quite well.

William licked his thigh next to his balls and looked up at him. “You like me better?”

Very slowly, he licked my way from the underside of his sack, up his shaft, and flicked his tongue across his head teasingly. Kingsley mumbled something about the tactic being unfair, but William just continued to grin impishly at him from between his legs. “All’s fair in love and war.”

Kingsley sat up on his elbows and reached one hand down, dragging him up by his hair and sending shocks of pleasure to William’s leaking cock. He stared into his eyes for some time before answering him. “I can have you.”

It should have been hurt. William had wanted him to say that he liked him better, that William was better looking, that he was a better lay, but when it came down to it, it didn’t matter. Kingsley was right. He couldn’t have William’s father so he would take what he could get and that was just fine with William.

 

 

*****

 

 

Somehow, William managed to stumble back into his own bed late that night. It might have looked suspicious if Father Mathis came to wake him and found that he wasn’t there for the second night in a row. When he woke up the following morning William went to stand up and found himself so surprised by the sharp shock of pain in his lower back, that he had to sit back down for a moment.

He hadn’t felt anything like that since the first time he went at it with Baun. Bracing himself on the night stand, he slowly stood back up and stretched, unable to keep for wincing. Of course, while he may have had rampant sex of all sorts with Tom for several weeks that was much different from what he’d been doing with Kingsley. To start with Kingsley was a grown man and a sight bit larger than Tom. Also, Tom had never been quite that rough and William liked it rough - just thinking about being nailed into the carpet like that was making him want to go at it again, despite the pain.

Unfortunately, as he made my way back to his dorm from the bathroom with a grimace on his face, he came to the conclusion that it would be better to hold off on those sorts of activities lest he arouse suspicion by not being able to move properly. That did not mean, however, that he couldn’t go and see him. There were plenty of things for him to do besides having sex.

He pulled his books out of his bedside table and looked through his winter assignments distastefully. Why did every teacher have to assume they were the only one of any importance? Including his lover. I took a moment to smile at the thought. Kingsley was his lover. Not a quick shag, or a fuck buddy, but a lover, _his_ lover. Then he frowned again; he was going to have to teach his lover not to assign five page essays over winter holidays. It was just cruel.

The library was dead, as it should be during the middle of Christmas, so it was nice and quiet as William picked through the stacks for anything that he thought might be helpful. There was a book on prose poetry, and something on symbolism that looked promising, and a few others that he stacked up and carried through the halls to Kingsley’s room, where he intended to spend the afternoon not fucking him and reminding him of exactly why overburdening students could be a very bad idea, especially if you were sleeping with one. Not that he’d been sleeping with William when he’d assigned it, but the lesson was still there.

He couldn’t knock on the door, so he kicked it and Kingsley stared at him in open confusion as William stood in the doorway, an armful of books and a bag slung over his shoulder, waiting for him to get out of the way. “What are you doing?”

“Thought I’d try a spot of homework.” He pushed past Kingsley and settled on the floor, letting the books tumbling down next to him. There was an open paperback on the coffee table, something ghastly and classical that William couldn’t be bothered to remember the name of – only that it had faded yellow pages that said it had been read many time.

“You came here to do homework?”

William raised a suggestive eyebrow. “What else would I come here for, Kingsley?”

Kingsley scowled, but there was mild amusement behind his eyes as he sat down on the couch and picked up the book, settling into the stiff cushions. William could tell he was watching him out of the corner of his eye as he began flipping through the books he’d brought with him to see if there was anything helpful, which there was.

There was something sadistically fun about watching Kingsley cringe every time he turned down the corner of a page. There was also something indescribably blissful about simply sitting in the room with him, both of them silent, not having to say or do anything other than annoy each other with furtive glances and bad habits.

It didn’t last. Kingsley must have guessed from the way he sat, or rather, the way he avoided sitting on his ass, that he was too sore for much of anything, but the good thing about an experienced lover is that they always have plenty of tricks up their sleeves.

William slept in Kingsley’s room that night, because it was warm and because they’d made it to the bed.

 

*****

 

Christmas was a dismal affair, there was a ratty little, half dead Christmas tree in the dining hall, a old, paint-worn nativity scene (the baby Jesus was missing his nose), Father Mathis spent a great deal of time explaining the true meaning of Christmas, and all William wanted was to get it over with so that he could show Kingsley that kissing wasn’t the only thing to be done under the missile toe.

Kingsley, however, was not in the Christmas spirit, at least not in the way William wanted him to be. He gave William alcohol, which he drank greedily and then choked on as he wasn’t used to it and it burned his throat, then he wanted to go to bed. William was disappointed at first, thinking he wanted him to leave, but when Kingsley pulled William against him and buried his nose in his hair, saying that he wanted him to stay the night, William couldn’t think of anything to complain about anymore.

The next morning he woke early and sat up on his elbows, watching Kingsley sleep. He was so relaxed, it made him look younger. Since he didn’t seem likely to wake anytime soon, William got up and began fixing tea, sifting through the various packets until he found something promising

He sat down on the couch to watch the kettle and something caught his attention out of the corner of his eyes. A photo album lay open on his coffee table; pictures of William’s father and mother smiling at Knox gleamed back at him. He remembered that Kingsley had been looking at something when he’d come in the night before, but he hadn’t really thought to ask what it was.

Picking up the album, William smiled. How quaint! It was his mother and father sitting on a bench together, but he noticed something that he never had before. They didn’t seem to like each other. William flipped back through a few pages. When they were looking at the camera, they were all smiles and laughter, but the moment they looked at each other it was like... well, it was like the way Tanya looked at Susan Riter after she found out Susan was trying to shag her boyfriend. The smiles were still there, but they were distinctly false.

Hmm, so his mother must have known. He traced her face with his finger and wondered how long she knew that the two of them were together before she broke up with him. From the look of things it was a while, but then Kingsley had said society was everything to them and she must have felt that staying with her boyfriend and saving social face, regardless of who he was sleeping around with, was worth it.

William was still looking when the tea kettle went off, but by then he was far too interested in what he was doing to go wake Kingsley for tea, so he poured some for himself and sat back down. He was nearly towards the end when he finally came across something that made him stop. Two boys, both with short dark hair, tan skin, and regal looking school uniforms and they looked nearly identical!

One was most certainly William’s father, but the other… his eyes flitted between the two. There were slight differences – William’s father was at least an inch or so taller than the other boy, and his skin was just a shade or two darker, his face was a tad less full. The more William looked, the more differences he saw, the nose, the ears, the way they smiled (father’s looked wicked, while the other boy simply looked genuine), and the eyes, his father’s sleight blue to the other boy’s hazel grey...

William’s mouth fell open and he nearly dropped his tea. He knew those eyes, it was Kingsley! For all the pictures he’d shown him he’d never seen one of his Professor. Pulling it out, he went back into the bedroom and laid down next to Kingsley, examining it again. Yes, definitely him.

He set the picture on the night stand and went about waking him up, which was to say William pulled the covers off him and started a trail of wet kisses down his chest. Kingsley stirred when William reached his naval, but didn’t wake. He inched a little further down the bed to lay between his legs and slowly licked his rising cock, from top to bottom.

Kingsley sluggishly lifted his hand and placed it on top of William’s head, waking by degrees as William took him into his mouth. The most wonderful thing about morning blow jobs was that at least one party involved is only half coherent and in his case it was Kingsley. The head of his cock pressed against the back of his throat before sliding down it. Kingsley’s fingers tightened in his hair and a deep throated moan tore from him at the tight constriction. William bobbed up and down a few times and the hand pulled painfully on his hair as Kingsley came down the back of his throat.

God, he even tasted perfect.

He threw himself on the bed next to Kingsley and listened contentedly to his panting breath, not even caring that he was still hard in his shorts. He could always take care of that later.

Kingsley looked over at the clock and put an arm over his forehead exhaustedly. “Shouldn’t you be upstairs begging Father Mathis for your Christmas presents?”

“Don’t have any.” Kingsley raised an eyebrow and William shrugged. “Father doesn’t believe in Christmas.”

“David always used to love Christmas.” William moaned into the side of Kingsley’s neck, wanting him to stop talking about his father. “He’d spend the whole day with garland around his head, calling himself an elf.”

It was apparent that William’s nibbling wasn’t getting them anywhere, so he reached over and grabbed the picture off the night stand. “Is that really you?”

Kingsley held it up and stared at it for a moment. “Yes.” He put it down on his own night stand and shoved William back when he tried to reach for it.

“Why didn’t you tell me you two looked so much alike?”

“We look nothing alike.”

“Well, no, not now, but then.” Kingsley stood and William grabbed the picture, holding it out so he could see. He ignored it and went into the bathroom.

“David was taller than me.”

“Barely!”

“By a good two inches. He was six foot, I was barely five foot eleven. He also had a deeper tan then I did, a product of playing sports, I’m sure.”

“That’s not much.” William mumbled, so he wouldn’t be able to hear him and set the picture down. A moment later the shower turned on and William couldn’t stop a devilish grin from spreading across his face as he walked lazily towards the bathroom.

_Happy Christmas to me._


	11. Chapter 11

William would have been upset about the end of holidays, except Father Mathis was beginning to get suspicious, so it was probably a good thing. Since the headmaster had begun watching him like a hawk William decided to wait at the station for everyone to get there; making it look like he was a normal teenager who couldn’t wait for his friends to get back.

Emerson was the first to arrive. He got off the noon train, took one look at William and said, “You got laid.” William tried to shake his head in denial, but Emerson wasn’t having any of it. “So, who was it?”

His crossed his arms over his chest and sat down grudgingly, or rather, tried to sit down grudgingly. The night before Kingsley had spent nearly an hour licking and fucking him, because it wasn’t likely they would get to do much of that during the school year. So when his sore tailbone met with the metal bench work, he lost all sense of dignantly to a bright stab of pain that made him yelp and put a hand on his lower back.

Emerson raised one eyebrow, “Not one of the second years, then?”

“Shut it.”

Perkins wasn’t much better, but at least he didn’t say anything. He looked William over, still sitting awkwardly on the edge of the bench and patted his back knowingly. He didn’t even want to wait for Wallace to arrive, but they absolutely insisted. William must have looked fairly put out, though, because Wallace didn’t make any kind of gesture hinting that he knew, but if Emerson and Perkins had both noticed, Wallace had, so William decided to thank him later.

The school was a good walk from the station, but they hadn’t seen each other in weeks, so they decided to take the long way. Emerson grinned mischievously, “Besides, you could probably use the exercise, work out the kinks and...” he ducked and ran as William swiped at him.

Perkins’d had a very boring holiday; he lived even further north than the school and had spent most of the holiday snowed in with his two sisters and his mother. His father had left them some time ago, so it was just the four of them. For Christmas he had gotten a lot of chocolate and some new football gear that he wanted to try on the field as soon as the ice melted.

Emerson had spent his holiday with his aunt and uncle in London, doing a ludicrous amount of shopping. The money had been his parents’ way of saying they were sorry for having to go overseas for Christmas. Not that Emerson had or ever would mind. He loved his parents, but William often got the feeling he loved material goods a great deal more.

Wallace wouldn’t say what he did other than homework, which William didn’t doubt he’d spent a great deal of time on. It was, as always, meticulously done, with even spaces and perfect handwriting, but he added onto his mental note to ask him what else had gone on when they were alone.

He somehow managed not to flush too deeply when they passed Kingsley at the entry way and he looked them up and down with deep contempt as he checked their names off on his sheet. He’d been absolutely horror struck when Father Mathis asked him to take charge of making sure all the students returned in good order.

Kingsley’s eyes followed a little longer than appropriate and William had to will his cock to stay where it was. If he was this bad just walking past Kingsley in the hall he had to wonder what it would be like when he started classes again.

 

 

*****

 

 

Hell. That’s what class was. _Hell_.

William wasn’t even sure he’d believed in heaven or hell until he had to sit in that classroom and not stare at Kingsley in open lust. He had thought it would be easy enough pretending that nothing had happened, but all he could focus on in class was sex. Kingsley was reading from some well known author and all he could hear was ‘sex, sex, sex’ over and over, like he was going to be getting some.

By the time the first weekend came about William was twitchy and irritable, especially when he found out that a teacher conference was to be held on Saturday and he wouldn’t be able to go and see Kingsley till Sunday. The only good to come out of that was Wallace and him got to talk because Emerson and Perkins were too busy looking at one of the waitresses in town to pay them any mind.

“So, you did it, huh?”

William looked at Emerson to make sure he hadn’t heard. “Yeah.”

“Was it any good.”

“Brilliant. How was your holiday?”

“Cousin.”

 _Wha..._ “Cousin?”

“Third cousin by marriage, twice removed, a good two years older than me and apparently has a thing for family.”

His mouth dropped and Emerson did notice that. “What’s going on?”

Wallace shrugged and William managed to recover from his shock, turning on them. “Weren’t you watching what’s-her-name over there?”

“Yeah, how old do you think she is?”

Perkins bent his head slightly, hoping to get a look up her skirt. “She’s got to be in her twenties.”

As soon as they were wrapped up in conversation again he turned back to Wallace. “You...” He couldn’t quite get it out, but Wallace nodded anyway. “Honestly, out of the three of you I would never have expected you to be the first.”

“First what?” Damn Emerson.

“Nothing, call Sophia over to get me another drink so you can hit on her.” Emerson didn’t move.

After a moment, Wallace seemed resigned to his fate. “I, uh, got laid, actually.”

Perkins chuckled deeply, and patted Wallace on the back amiably. “I never thought I’d see the day that you had sex. Who was she?”

Wallace looked down at his drink and mumbled something about it not being incest if you aren’t blood related, but looked up and said, “Tiffany. She came with some of my family and we hit it off.”

Emerson started to nudge at him suggestively, but suddenly caught on to what William had said earlier. “Wait a minute, how do you know he’s the first?”

“Perkins would have said something and you talk about it too much for someone who’s had it.”

He flushed a little and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ve just never had the occasion.”

William huffed in an unfortunately gay manner. “Of course you’ve never had the occasion. You go to an all-boy’s school nine months out of the year. I was just saying that it was surprising that of the three of you, meek little Wallace got nailed first, and before he graduated.”

Emerson didn’t respond, other than to call the waitress over so they could order lunch. He tried to put on an extra bit of charm, but she seemed disturbed by it, so he stopped.

Sunday dawned gloomy, with an impending threat of rain and if William hadn’t already established that he spent a great deal of time doing ‘something’ he might have had difficulty getting away from his friends. As it was, he reassured them that he would be back for dinner and strolled merrily down the halls to Kingsley’s quarters.

Sometime towards the end of holidays, he’d tried calling his Renauld, but besides being a little odd, Kingsley had pointed out that they couldn’t afford slip-ups in class. So, until William graduated, he was Kingsley. It felt a bit strange referring to his lover by his last name, but the moment he was through the door, he knew that wasn’t the only thing odd thing he would be dealing with.

Kingsley ushered him in and closed the door, staring at him as if he’d done something scandalous. “What are you doing here?”

William raised his eyebrows and looked around, half suspected Father Mathis to be in the room. He wasn’t. “I’m coming to see you. I’d have been here yesterday, but you had a conference.”

“It will look suspicious if you come here every weekend.”

“I’ve come here every weekend for months, it would look more suspicious is I were to stop now.” Honestly, the man was far more intelligent than that, but the moment his dick was involved he lost all semblance of logic.

“We can’t have sex.”

Kingsley might as well have thrown cold ice on him. Not that he was particularly planning on sex – it’d be nice, but there were risks to consider – but now that he’d outright forbid it... “Why not?”

“It is the middle of the school year, you can’t sleep here and I’ll not send you back to the dorms smelling of sex.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m not here for that, I’m here to talk and do my homework. It’s not like we have to have sex. Just because you act like a randy teenager whenever I’m in here doesn’t mean we _have_ to. We could always just...”

He had no idea what he had been about to say, because Kingsley decided to shut him up in his favorite fashion – kissing. When he pulled away several minutes later William’s cheeks were flushed, his lips swollen, and his back was against a wall, though he couldn’t quite remember how he’d gotten there.

Kingsley stared down at him with a mix of awe and uncertainty. “We can’t have sex during the school year.”

“I wasn’t asking for sex.” _...but I damn well am now_.

“I won’t lose my job over this, you understand.”

He understood. They’d only started seeing each other, if you could it that, a few weeks ago. It wasn’t like William expected him to throw his life away for it, but he also wasn’t going to give him up entirely. “When?

Kingsley bent down and put his cheek to William’s, and stood there a moment longer. He thought he heard him breathing in his hair, before he pulled back and walked to his desk, leaving William dazed and more than just a little confused.

“May I ask what you plan to do once you graduate, William?”

Graduation? William thought for a moment and it hit him like a brick. He was graduating that year. For the past few months he’d been so caught up in the idea of seducing Kingsley he hadn’t once taken the necessary moments to think about graduation.

“Well, I suppose I’ll attend a university.”

Kingsley picked up a pen and tapped it against the desk. “To become what?”

“I’ve no idea, really, but I’m not doing anything my father did.”

“I believe it’s too late for that.”

It took him a moment to catch on, but when he did he flushed bright red and went to sit on the couch with his books. “I’ll attend a university for a while, decide what I want to do and then do it. You know, Tom suggested turning the Bryce Estates into a hall for public functions. Like a bed and breakfast only fancier. Maybe I should do something in interior decorating.”

Kingsley gave one of his rare, true smiles. “I’m well acquainted in your taste for clothes, William, not to mention men, so perhaps Tom should do the decorating and you could run the business end.”

William would have told him to sod off, except he was right. “Well then, that’s it. I’ll take the summer and then study business so that I can transform my ancestral home into a large, garish bed and breakfast.” He paused. “And I’ll be telling my parents that I’m gay, because I fully intend to host as many gay functions as I can to further humiliate my father.”

The pen stopped tapping and William looked up to see what he was doing, only to find that Kingsley was just staring at him in a pondering sort of way that put him a bit off. “Are you alright, Kingsley?”

He nodded. “Yes, I am. What were you thinking of doing over the summer?”

“Staying at the country estate, I suppose, or the flat in London. In fact, anywhere my father isn’t.”

“So, I suppose my home would suffice.”

William forgot to breathe for almost a minute. “Are you...?” He couldn’t be. He just couldn’t. “Are you asking me to come stay the summer?”

“If you wish.”

If he _wished_? Was he mad? William had to fight the urge to squeal like some overzealous school girl and stay seated, though he couldn’t stop the stupid grin that threatened to split his face. Maybe he could tell Emerson on the last day of classes. Just for the shock value. Speaking of shock...

“The boys next door will be scandalized.”

“Who?”

“The boys that live in the estate next to you. Wallace told me they said you were celibate; that no one was ever seen entering or leaving you manor, not even you.”

Kingsley deliberately turned away from him before answering. “Just because I have no visitors at my estate does not mean that I’m celibate.”

“You’ve...” His brain ground to a decisive halt. “Who? How?”

Kingsley flipped a page. “There are other men in this school besides myself, William.”

William’s stomach turned. “If you say Professor Foster, so help me I’m going to retch right here on the floor.”

“Of course not. It was Preston. Quite the charming fellow when he wants to be.”

Preston? William gaped like a fish and Kingsley looked over with one eye raised. From the expression on his face he clearly found William’s state of disbelief amusing. “Are you going to do it with him again?”

“I’d imagine so. Appearances and all.” William stared indignantly at Kingsley for several seconds before Kingsley took pity on him. “I’m joking, William. Preston and I have not had relations in almost a year.”

“Oh.” It hadn’t sounded like a joke, but then he didn’t joke often; make sarcastic comments meant to belittle him, yes, but actual joking, no. He didn’t think he much cared for his jokes.

 

 

*****

 

 

It wasn’t like they intended to have sex. In fact, they intended to specifically not have sex until William was safely cloistered away in Kingsley’s manor. But, the best laid plans... in fact, any plans that involve a randy teenager and his oversexed professor not shagging were doomed for failure. They shagged on Kingsley’s birthday, because he didn’t give William time to buy him a present; they shagged on Valentines Day, because no one should not shag on Valentines Day; they shagged Ash Wednesday, because Kingsley couldn’t think of a reason not to; they shagged on St. David’s Day, because Father Mathis insisted that it was a celebratory holiday; they shagged on St. Patrick’s day, despite the fact that it fell on a weekday, because they were drunk; they shagged on Palm Sunday, because it had the word Palm in it; they shagged on Easter, because William wanted to hunt for eggs; they shagged on St. George’s Day, for the same reason we shagged on St. David’s Day; and they shagged a few random days in May because there weren’t any holidays left till after Summer.

Emerson became suspicious when Kingsley assigned William detention and he had to bite his lip to keep from smiling. At the time, William was still working on getting him to submit to that particular fantasy and when he’d snuck into the shower after detention that night with his hair disheveled and his lips swollen, Emerson was waiting for him and there was no putting him off.

“You... you had sex with him, didn’t you?”

William gaped for a moment, but that only reminded him that he could still taste cum on his tongue, so he closed his mouth and tried not to look too guilty. “Where would you ever get an idea like that?”

Emerson crossed his arms stubbornly over his chest. “I’m not blind.”

“You are, too, if it’s taken you this long to notice.” _Damn, shouldn’t have said that_.

For a moment William thought he might have hurt Emerson’s feelings, but a little devilish grin started to spread across the other boy’s face. “That’s why you stayed over holidays.”

William started to deny it, but there really was no point. “Emerson, not that I particularly take you for the tattle tale sort, but, you aren’t going to tell anyone, are you?”

“Only if you’re willing to admit it’s horribly disturbing.”

“It is not.”

He raised an eyebrow. “He’s your professor. He’s old enough to be your father.”

“He shagged my father.” For a fleeting moment William thought he might have killed him, because Emerson had stopped breathing. “Emerson?”

“You... he... that’s really wrong, William. You realize he’s probably thinking about your father when the two of you...” he waved his hand around dramatically as if he couldn’t bring himself to say it.

William nodded, “I know that, but I really like him. I mean, I think I might more than just like him, so I don’t mind.”

After a moment Emerson sighed. “I won’t tell anyone.”

That had come right before Easter and for several weeks after William noticed little changes in the way Emerson behaved. Not towards him, Emerson didn’t seem hesitant to slap him on the back, or sling an arm around his shoulder, or talk about Tom, or his would-be sex life. He changed in the way he acted towards Kingsley. At first it was as simple as William catching him glaring openly at their Professor during class, then it was the tone of his voice, dripped with disdain when he answered questions, then, a week before finals, the ultimate horror.

William had been sitting in English class, ignoring his lover completely in favor of fantasizing what was more than likely to happen that weekend, when Kingsley called on him, knowing full well he wasn’t paying attention. “Mr. Bryce, will you please repeat to the class what I was just saying.”

His fantasy had come to an abrupt halt at the realization that the entire class was staring at him. “I... you were saying that...” He trailed off and shrugged as he realized that he couldn’t even read the title of the book Kingsley was holding.

Kingsley scowled down at him and William shrank in his seat, trying to hide the fact that his trousers were already becoming tighter. “Day dreaming again, Mr. Bryce?” Oh, bloody hell, he was going to lecture him. “Your parents do not pay several thousand pounds a semester for you to sit in my class and day dream. Further more, I do not teach so that I can be ignored. I teach so that...”

“Leave off!” Emerson stood up and slammed his hands on the desk.

William’s hard-on wilted instantly. He looked up at Emerson in disbelief and he wasn’t the only one. The entire classroom had gone deathly silent. Kingsley turned on Emerson, “Pardon me.”

Emerson was apparently oblivious to the nature of his offense. Either that or he didn’t care. “You heard me. Leave. Off. You don’t have to pick on him just because...”

William didn’t know where he was going with it, but he wasn’t about to wait around and find out. He grabbed Emerson’s sleeve and yanked down hard, forcing him to sit. “Shut it, Emerson!”

Kingsley stared openly at the two of them, unable to think of anything to say. Emerson seemed to have finally realized the gravity of what he had done. His face had gone sheer white and he was sitting frozen in his seat. For all his bravado, Emerson had never been the kind of person to back talk or yell at a teacher. In fact, for all intents and purposes he was a model student.

William’s brain caught up with him and he grabbed Emerson by the arm and stood up, dragging him out the door without a backward glance. If he were going to be an arse to him, that was fine, but he was not going to drag Kingsley into it. He shoved Emerson through the door to the nearest bathroom. “What is your bloody problem?!”

Emerson sputtered, “My problem? He yells at you and treats you like dirt in class and I’m the one with the problem?”

“Yes!” William shoved him again, because it felt good. “Have you taken a moment to consider that perhaps I enjoy it when he yells at me?” When Emerson opened his mouth, but didn’t say anything, William take the opportunity to continue. “Perhaps I don’t mind it when he lectures me. Perhaps I get fucking _hard_. Have you ever considered that?”

For a moment Emerson gaped like a fish. “You... you enjoy it when he yells at you?” He said it very slowly, as if testing it.

William frowned at him. “Yes, Emerson, I like it, but that isn’t even the point. The point is that I lo... like him and if you get him fired I’ll... I’ll never forgive you.”

Emerson’s upper lip started to twitch and for a second William thought perhaps he was angry, right up until he burst out laughing. “You sound like my cousin, Ellie!”

“I do not!”

“ _’Peter broke my absolute, favoritest bracelet, I’ll never forgive him!’_ ”

The problem with Emerson was that it was hard to stay angry with him. He had a kind of infectious smile and to make matters worse, he was right and he knew it. William slugged his arm, but not as hard as he could have. “Fine, so I sound like a child, but you’re being an arse.”

His smile faltered, “Maybe.”

“There’s no ‘maybe’ about it, Emerson, you glare at him, you refuse to treat him with any kind respect, you yelled at him in class; you’re acting like you’re jealous or something.” Emerson’s face turned pink and William had a revelation. “You are jealous, aren’t you?”

“No! I...” He bit his lip and cursed under his breath. “All right, a little, but it isn’t like that.”

“It isn’t?”

“…Maybe a little.”

“A little?”

Emerson outright pouted, a look that unfortunately suited him very well. “I don’t know, William, I just don’t.” He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest defensively. “I’d never even thought about it before you came out, you know, but I keep wanting to kiss you and that makes me think that I might... you know. Not that I’m propositioning you, or anything, it’s just that watching him yell at you in class and everything is...”

Oh, bloody hell, he was rambling. Emerson wasn’t gay, of that William was fairly certain. Not that he was an expert on gay men, he’d only slept with three so far, but there were certain things about him.

He’d stammered to a stop and was staring at William with pink ears, waiting for a response. There really was only one way William could think to go about this. He kissed Emerson. Not hard or demanding, not like Kingsley kissed him, but very gently and sans tongue. At first, Emerson didn’t react, but after a while he tried to kiss back, pressing his lips against William’s and hesitantly opening his mouth.

It didn’t last very long, a few awkward seconds and when William pulled back he could tell by Emerson’s face that he had very much made up his mind. “I’m not gay.”

William nodded knowingly and winked at him. “Thought so.”

“Then why did you kiss me?”

“Blackmail material, good for the rest of your life. Besides,” he shrugged, “it was probably the only chance I was going to get.”

Emerson slapped his arm, hard, but he was laughing and William was immensely relieved because he couldn’t even begin to imagine what he would have done if Emerson had liked it.

 

 

*****

 

 

Finals crept up on them faster than he’d thought possible. Usually when he had a test coming up, time slows to a crawl and William could hardly stand it, but the prospect of going to live with Kingsley for the summer had made everything speed past in record time. Before he knew it he was sitting in Professor Lanford’s final, wishing to god he’d paid more attention to his lectures on dead royalty.

William had just scribbled what he hoped was a passable answer to one of the fifty-some-odd questions in front of him, when Father Mathis opened the door to the classroom. At Knox, Headmaster Griggs had been known to storm in, grab William and various other misfits by their ears and drag them to his office, but in the nearly two years he had attended St. Christoff’s William had never heard of Father Mathis interrupting a class for any reason.

The Headmaster looked around the room and, to William’s dismay, those eyes settled on him before Father Mathis motioned for Professor Lanford to step outside. For a few moments, he was absolutely baffled. William couldn’t think of anything he’d done wrong, he had been on his absolute best behavior for the last few months because he didn’t want anything to stand in the way of...

Then it hit him, just in time for Professor Lanford to step back in. “Mr. Bryce, Father Mathis would like to see you in his office. I’ll see that your things are taken back to your dorm.”

William stood up and left, walking down the halls with Father Mathis on very shaky legs. He didn’t say a word to him, just occasionally looked back with an expression of utmost pity and William couldn’t help but think there was only reason for it. He knew. Father Mathis knew about him and Kingsley and William couldn’t breathe thinking about it. Kingsley would lose his job, he’d lose his dignity, and worse yet William would lose him.

He wanted to run to Kingsley’s class and warn him, but something stopped him, perhaps it was that he was so nervous he’d probably have fallen on his face. When he took his seat in the chair across Father Mathis’s desk William thought his heart was going to stop entirely, or that he’d be sick on the very expensive Oriental rug. Either one would have been rather disastrous.

“I hardly think I’m the one who should be telling you this, but your mother asked me to, as she was otherwise occupied.”

His mother knew? Oh god.

“William, your father was in an accident. He was taking a helicopter back to London late yesterday evening and... well, they’re not quite sure what happened yet, but it crashed in a field up north. There weren’t any survivors.”

“My father...”

Father Mathis cringed, “Is dead, William.”

“Oh.” William didn’t really know how he was supposed to feel. He should have been relieved that this wasn’t about Kingsley and him, but it was almost like he had gone numb.

“I know this is hard for you to understand, but your mother is making the funeral arraignments and she wants you home as soon as possible.”

Funeral arraignment for his father. Who was dead. William’s chest started to tighten inexplicably.

“You’ll be excused from the rest of your exams, of course, and escorted home in the morning.”

He was excused from exams. He should have been happy about that too, but it didn’t feel like he was happy. His chest ached and his eyes were starting to sting, like he was about to... Oh, no, he wasn’t going to cry in front of Father Mathis, he just wasn’t.

Father Mathis started to say something about his escort, but William shot out of his chair and ran from the room, acutely aware of the tears threatening to fall. Why was he crying? What was there to cry about? His bastard of a father was dead, he should be bloody ecstatic.

But he couldn’t ignore the very obvious evidence that he wasn’t.   He was upset, he was about to start crying for one of the few times in his adolescent life. William leaned against the wall outside Father Mathis’s office and tried to get a hold of himself.

He could handle this, he could. His father had been an utter bastard his whole life, he had never shown him praise, he had never smiled at him, he had never really even hugged him unless there were people watching. The more he thought about it, the worse that terrible feeling got and William couldn’t deny the tears when they started to spill over onto his cheeks.

Why couldn’t he have done those things? Why? William was his son, why couldn’t he have hugged him, or even just smiled at him once before he died? A sob pushed its way out of his throat and he covered his mouth. He couldn’t just stand there, crying like a child, waiting for class to be let out. He had to go somewhere and be alone, but he didn’t think he wanted to be really alone. He wanted to be with Kingsley.

Without thinking about it, William made his way through the halls, not really caring if anyone saw where he was going or if he looked upset, or anything else for that matter. Kingsley’s door was unlocked, as it always now, and William slipped inside and sat heavily on the couch, still trying to control the flood of tears breaking through.

It wasn’t working, they just kept coming regardless of what William did or told himself and in the end he laid down on the couch, buried his head in a pillow that smelled of Kingsley, and sobbed like a child until he fell asleep.


	12. Chapter 12

William woke up to fingers brushing along his cheek. Before he’d had time to even remember where he was, he was being kissed, so softly and tenderly that he thought he was dreaming. Dreaming or not, though, William kissed back, enjoying the feel of pliant lips and the tongue, not so much searching as caressing the inside of his mouth.

It was some time before the lips moved away and he opened his eyes, blinking the sleep away happily as Kingsley came into focus. For all of thirty seconds, he was very sure that it was a dream, because Kingsley had never been that gentle with him. Then he remembered why he was there and the painful tightness in his chest returned.

There wasn’t a mirror handy, but William didn’t need one to know how he must have looked; eyes and nose puffy and red, tear stains down his face, his clothes wrinkled. He started to wipe frantically at his cheeks. He couldn’t believe that he’d let Kingsley find him like that. He hadn’t let anyone see him cry since... since ever.

Kingsley stopped him, took his hand at the wrist and pulled it very gently away from his face before leaning in and kissing his cheek. Kingsley had never been the type to be gentle and loving, he’d never showered William with tender kisses or loving words and William liked it that way. Something in him, however, couldn’t resist this either. It may have been that he was just upset over his father’s death, but the reason didn’t matter.

Kingsley kissed him on the mouth again, opening his lips with his tongue while his hands found purchase on the back of William’s head and his clothed thigh. William was very suddenly aware that he was dressed and that he didn’t want to be. He wanted Kingsley to fuck him and make everything go away, but he wasn’t doing that, he was just kissing him and touching him in lewdly innocent ways. Kingsley’s fingers weren’t even pretending to move towards his cock.

William pulled away, huffing for breath, and stared at him in confusion. Kingsley was looking at him like he was seeing him for the first time. William knew he should have been grateful, but like with so many other things that day he couldn’t bring myself to be anything other than confused. Why wouldn’t Kingsley touch him the way he wanted him to?

Before he could voice my opinion Kingsley started kissing him again, slowly rising onto his knees to lean over William as he did so. The hand on William’s thigh slid up to linger on his hip, still not touching him in the places he wanted it to, but touching, at least. Kingsley pressed his mouth a little more firmly against his, almost experimentally and William felt the other hand untucking his shirt on one side and sliding under it to rest against bare skin.

Kingsley’s fingers were so cold against William’s skin that he couldn’t hold back a surprised shriek that quickly turned into a moan. Kingsley gripped his side and pulled him off the sofa to straddle his lap, holding William against him like he’d disappear if he let go.

Kingsley’s mouth moved to his neck and up to his ear where William vaguely heard him whispering, “William.”

A delighted shudder ran down his back. William couldn’t recall Kingsley ever having said his name like that. “Yes?”

“Not David. William.” He wasn’t sure what to say to that. He was light headed with lust and Kingsley wasn’t making very much sense, but he didn’t care about that. He cared about getting him naked, getting himself naked, and having sex so that he could forget everything for a few moments.

It took a good ten minutes to get naked, as Kingsley insisted on touched and exploring every part of William that he uncovered with his hands and mouth before moving on to the next article of clothing. By the time Kingsley got around to touching him in the places he wanted to be touched he was so thoroughly frustrated that he was whimpering and pleading with every other breath.

Kingsley’s fingers gently probed him open, first one, then two, then three, and William was so close to cumming he didn’t think he’d last long enough for him to get it in and when Kingsley finally slid in the tinge of pain was so minimal that William started for a moment before moaning as he was pressed back into the corner of the couch and filled entirely.

He completely forgot how to form coherent words as Kingsley moved inside him with slow steady strokes, keeping eye contact, refusing to look away. He brushed against his prostate and William couldn’t hold back, clutching at Kingsley’s arms as he came. Kingsley continued fucking him, holding off for several minutes before releasing inside of him.

It wasn’t the most mind blowing sex he’d ever had, but it had been... well, it hadn’t just been sex, there was something in the way Kingsley had touched him and looked at him that made William feel like it was something different entirely. Kingsley pulled out of him and held William while he came down from a dazed cloud of thoroughly debauched. Several hours later, when he was lying in Kingsley’s arms on the bed, both of them awake, but neither wanting to disturb the other’s thoughts, it came to him.

That hadn’t been about sex or even comfort. That had been about love.

 

 

*****

 

 

William woke the next morning to the sound of the shower running and fought the desperate urge to curl up and sleep in the many pillows that smelled like his lover. He vaguely recalled Father Mathis saying something about his being escorted home that morning and he wanted to spend time with Kingsley before then. Kingsley came out of the shower, still dripping wet, but unfortunately wrapped in a towel. When he saw William sitting up in the bed, a pillow bunched between his thighs, he stopped long enough for a curt nod before moving to his wardrobe and rummaging around for clothes.

After a moment longer of silence, William decided he didn’t like it. “Good morning.”

Kingsley looked up at him with one perfect, raised eyebrow. “You should be getting dressed.”

William stuck out his tongue. If Kingsley were going to be rude about it, he’d just as soon go back to sleep. Kingsley had other things in mind. The moment William laid down, he yanked the covers from him and threw a shirt in his face. “Get up, we should have left already.”

“We?” He pulled the white t-shirt over his head and was surprised to find that it was one of his own.

“Yes, we. Your insufferable mother insisted that I be the one to drive you home.”

“She did?”

“Not only that, but I am to attend the funeral, as well.”

William couldn’t think of anything to say other than “Oh,” which didn’t express even half the surprise and relief that he was feeling. Kingsley was coming with him; he didn’t have to do this alone. Getting up, he pulled on a pair of jeans that sat folded up at the foot of the bed.

It was nearing noon when they actually made it out. William had to stop and say goodbye to Emerson, Wallace, and Perkins, who wouldn’t be leaving for another two weeks. They exchanged phone numbers and walked him to the door. Wallace gave him a knowing wink when he saw Kingsley waiting in the car and Emerson started to flip their Professor off, seeing as he wasn’t likely to see him again before he graduated, but William managed to cover his hand just in time. Emerson would thank him later when he realized Kingsley hadn’t finished grading their final exams.

Watching St. Christoff’s fading in the rear view mirror was surreal. With everything that had happened William couldn’t quite grasp that he was never going back there again, that he’d graduated. It was so unnerving that for the first half hour he didn’t say anything, just stared at the passing scenery, trying to think about anything except everything, which didn’t even make sense while he was doing it.

They stopped at a gas station and Kingsley went in to buy him a bag of crisps and a soda, despite insisting that it was unhealthy. While Kingsley was in the little convenience store, William reached in the back and began rummaging through the various things he’d put there.

He was fairly surprised when he found the photo album that Kingsley had always kept under his coffee table stuffed into an overnight bag, but at least it was something to look at, so William pulled it out and sat back in his seat, turning the pages while Kingsley paid.

“Where did you get that?”

William hadn’t even heard him approaching the car. “I was bored.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to go snooping around my private possessions.” But he didn’t take it away, or insist that he put it back, so William continued to look through it idly while sipping on a Virgin Cola that tasted far less appealing than it had looked on television.

“Renauld.” He wasn’t a student anymore, there wasn’t any need for caution, but the name still tasted odd on his tongue.

“What is it, William?” He didn’t sound upset, yet.

“How long did she know you were sleeping with him?”

Kingsley looked over at the album scathingly, as if it were telling William all his secrets. “Just after the beginning of our seventh year. She had been acting strangely around us for a few days, but I hadn’t thought anything of it. I suppose I figured it for a female problem. One evening, David and I were sitting around the table in the library, doing some last minute research before bed and she came in, stared down at David and said, ‘I know.’ David wasn’t the sort to play innocent when he’d been caught at something. He didn’t even look at her, just said ‘I don’t care’ and they never mentioned it again. Unless you count the glaring looks of hatred they sent each other when they thought I wasn’t looking.”

William traced his mother’s face in the picture. “Must have been terribly embarrassing.”

He chuckled, “Yes, quite. Rumors circulated for weeks over what she was talking about and a few of the more humorous suggestions came very close.”

Everything got quiet again and they didn’t say anything else until they were a half mile from London, where his mother had insisted the services be held, but they did stop to have sex in the back seat of the car at the hundred kilometer marker because... well, it had been a hundred kilometers

 

 

*****

 

 

They arrived in London late that evening. William’s mother was waiting for them in the flat, her hair and makeup flawlessly done, wearing a blue dress that moved the way women’s hips made those kinds of dresses move. She nodded politely and blushed bright pink when Kingsley took her hand and told her how sorry he was for her lose. She even gave William a stiff, unfamiliar hug. It was all terribly polite of her, if unnecessary. She insisted that Kingsley eat something after having driven such a long way at her behest, so while she ushered him into the kitchen, William went to put his things in his room.

It had been several years since William had been to London, and if he had spent his entire life thinking his father was a dead set heterosexual, it would have taken five seconds in the living room of the flat to set him straight. First there was the décor; his mother had always loved color - red, orange, yellow, green, purple - but the flat had white walls and beige furnishing, accented sparsely with deep cherry wood and midnight blue accessories. It was also absolutely meticulous, not the kind of clean he had always associated with his mother (the kind that left an overpowering scent of windex and bleach behind), but really and truly clean. William ran a hand over the white couch, free from any visible stains. It looked like the work of an interior decorator.

He turned around and a picture above the television caught his eye. An oil painting of a man’s naked torso. A very muscular man’s naked torso. He looked around more closely and began to notice other things - a collection of videos that were neither children’s movies, nor anything his mother would have watched (he made a mental note to take some to his room when she wasn’t looking), a stack of books behind the sofa, several of which included the words ‘gay’ and ‘erotica’ in the titles, and a few interesting magazines on the coffee table that made him a little uncomfortable when he associated them with his father. Overall, it left the impression that an interior decorator might actually have had a hand in the apartment, among other things.

Grabbing his trunk, William lugged it to his bedroom, trying to ignore the overpowering smell that meant his mother had had to clean it out before they got there, and looked around apprehensively. Whereas his room at the manor was large and sparsely furnished, his room in the flat was small and cramped. The bed was a twin, the desk had a small television on it and barely enough room for him to sit and write a letter (no DVD player, so much for checking out his father’s adult video collection), and shoved into the farthest corner next to an unnecessarily large window, was an abysmally small wardrobe. Wonderful, he was going to have put some of his trousers in drawers where they’d get wrinkled.

Sitting on the bed experimentally, he decided that sleeping wasn’t going to be too bad, but it was going to be very lonely, especially when Kingsley was only two doors away. He took just a moment to wonder how heavy a sleeper his mother really was before getting up and heading to the kitchen to join them.

“...were you thinking, Addy?!”

William stopped outside the closed door that lead into the kitchen. That was Kingsley’s voice and had he just called her ‘Addy?’

“I don’t know what I was thinking, Renauld, I was barely eighteen, I was just about to graduate, and you had been talking all term about the University. I didn’t know what to do.”

What were they talking about?

“So, what, you went to David instead of me?”

“I didn’t want to get you involved if I didn’t have to.”

“I was bloody well enough involved to begin with!” It got deathly quiet.

“Renauld,” William didn’t like the way she said his name, like she was soothing him or something; if anyone was going to be soothing Kingsley it would be William.

“Don’t.” He had half a mind to go in and ask what she had been doing that he hadn’t wanted her to continue with. “You do know I’m gay, Addy. Through and through. I’ve no more attraction to women than I imagine you do.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“When did this happen?”

Kingsley sighed, but not in the annoyed way he always had when William asked questions. Then again, this was a different sort of question. “I’ve always been gay, Addy.”

“But in school we...” there was a significant pause and William got the impression she might be doing some kind of hand motion because Kingsley started chuckling.

“I know, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m gay.”

“Hm.” William smiled wickedly at the offense in her voice.

There was another long bout of silence and William considered going in. Kingsley’s next words stopped him. “So, what is it that you expect of me, then? Am I to move in with you two and play the happy father?”

Happy father? What did he mean ‘happy father?’

“If you want, but… I really don’t know what I expect, Renauld. Just with David gone I felt... well, you had a right to know.”

“I had a right to know eighteen years ago when you were pregnant with my child.”

Pregnant? His child? Wait... _eighteen years ago_?!

“I couldn’t tell you then, it would have ruined both our lives. My parents disowned me and yours would have as well. You wouldn’t have been able to attend the University, I’m not even sure we would have been able to support ourselves. David didn’t have any such problem. He’d already inherited his grandmother’s wealth. He could afford a nanny to help with William while he went to school and his only stipulation was that I not tell you.”

_No_. William stared at the door in shock. _No, no, no_. She couldn’t possibly be saying what he thought she was.

“He didn’t want you to tell me?”

“It was his only condition. He was so angry with you, Renauld. I think... I think he may have loved you back then, but I do know he never stopped hating you. It was hard on William; it seemed like every time he opened his mouth he said or did something that reminded David of you.”

William stepped back from the door, shaking his head, even though he knew they couldn’t see it. It just wasn’t possible. It wasn’t.

“But he... he has David’s sense of humor, David’s personality, he even looks like David.”

Yes, he may not have known much about his father, but he did know that he looked just like him.

“You and David were almost identical. As for the rest, you two were far more alike than I think even you realized. You had the same sense of humor and at certain times you could be just as brazen as he was. You just chose your moments.”

“William...”

“Does a very good job of knowing when to open his mouth nearly ninety percent of the time. You should see him at gatherings; it’s so very obvious that he doesn’t say even half of what he wants to.”

God, she was right. In all those stories Kingsley had told him, he couldn’t think of a single thing his father or mother had done what he would have.

“God, you’re right.”

William wanted to tell him not to say it, but he was too busy trying to swallow the bile rising in his throat.

“William’s my son.”

He ran to the bathroom.

 

 

*****

 

 

The funeral was fabulous. His father would have hated it. William now understood why he hadn’t been to London with his parents in so long. Flaming didn’t exactly describe them, but it came very close. There wasn’t one or two, either, there were at least half a dozen sitting in the back of the church, sobbing tastelessly into expensive black handkerchiefs.

Not that he was far along, in fact William was one short step from breaking down entirely in front of the congregation and it had very little to do with his so-called father. His entire world had just been turned around and he wasn’t really sure what he wanted to do about it. He loved Kingsley, he really loved him. Even knowing the man was his biological father couldn’t change that, it couldn’t change that when he thought of him naked he felt a thrill go up his spine, or that he wanted Kingsley to hold him and kiss him and shag him silly, or that his voice did dirty bad wrong things to him. It didn’t change a damned thing except now it was wrong to feel that way.   Well, more wrong.

His mother was as dignified about her crying as she could be. William was surprised that she cried at all, but then he supposed you can’t live with someone for nearly twenty years without it affecting you when they die. It was affecting him and he hadn’t even been friends with the bastard. He nearly laughed when he realized he hadn’t really been family either, but laughing would have been inappropriate.

The wake was to be held at the flat and it was a tense fifteen minute drive there from the church. William couldn’t be sure whether it was something in his face, or that they’d heard him outside of the kitchen the night before, but either way they knew that he knew. If his mother gave him one more sidelong glance, he was going to burst. Then again, he probably wouldn’t, because Kingsley, _his father_ , wouldn’t have.

William dropped his head to his knees, ignoring the fact that they had just stopped outside the flat, and tried not to make pitiful whining noises. Kingsley was his father. He’d slept with his own father. He heard his mother and the driver getting out of the car and felt Kingsley’s hand on his back. He wanted Kingsley to kiss him, but it was obvious at the way he sat nearly a foot away that he was trying to be as paternal as he knew how. “William...”

Without thinking William thrust his head up and kissed him. Not tongues, nothing lewd, but very obviously not chaste. Kingsley pulled away abruptly and William scowled up at his outraged expression, “What?”

“Don’t pretend you didn’t hear.”

“Of course I heard. It’s not a very large flat, is it? And, besides, why else would I have locked myself in my room?” He knew that he sounded impertinent, but he hardly cared. He didn’t want objections, he wanted Kingsley to kiss him back. Kissing had to still be okay, it just had to.

“If you heard, then why the hell are you trying to kiss me?” He lowered his voice as if someone might hear him. “I am your father.” William was moderately pleased at the way he choked up on ‘father,’ as if he didn’t like the idea any more than William did. “It’s not right.”

At those words, things suddenly became very clear to him. He didn’t care what was right. He didn’t care that Kingsley was his father. He didn’t care what anyone thought of it, he only knew that he still wanted him. Kingsley had never even met him until he was seventeen. “It wasn’t right when I was your student, either.”

“This is different.”

“Not much!”

“It’s incest!”

William decided to do what Kingsley had become so fond of doing during the school year. He shut him up by shoving his tongue down Kingsley throat. Of course, he had to throw a leg over and straddled him to hold him in place first, but it was all the same to him. Kingsley put up a fabulous protest, wriggling about, but it only served to show William how much he was enjoying it, despite recent revelations.

Eventually, though, he had to breathe. Pulling back, William didn’t even wait for him to protest before sliding to the floor of the car, wedging himself between the back of the seat and Kingsley’s spread legs; perfect position to get him to listen. “I don’t care what it is.”

Kingsley stared, open mouthed at William as he unzipped his trousers. “I love you and the rest of the world can bugger off for all I care.” He reached his hand into Kingsley’s pants. “You’re still the same Kingsley. You still look the same.” He pulled his cock out, stroking a hand lazily up and down it. “You feel the same,” He ran his tongue over the head, “taste the same,” Kingsley moaned, letting his head drop back onto the seat rest, “sound the same.”

“Shut up and suck.” It was a command that William was gladly willing to obey.

Five minutes later William sat back up on the seat, eyes slightly glazed over, trying to catch his breath. The back of his head was tender from Kingsley pulling on his hair, but he could straighten it out before they went in. His suit jacket was wrinkled in the back, but this was his home, he could take off his jacket if he wanted.

William opened his mouth to ask how he’d done, but Kingsley was already kissing him again and William didn’t think it was appropriate to talk with his mouth full, so he let himself be absolutely ravaged until they were both light headed with the need air.

Kingsley looked down at him intently and William was beginning to become afraid he was going to do something dramatic, like say they couldn’t ever be together, when he finally spoke. “God help me, William, but I do love you.”

William’s breath caught in his throat.

“I loved you father so very much and at first I was perfectly willing to pretend you were him, but when I saw you laying on my couch with your nose red from crying, I couldn’t pretend anymore. David never cried; he didn’t have it in him. You do and for some odd reason, breaking that illusion didn’t make my feelings go away.”

William wanted to kiss him again, to reassure Kingsley that he felt the same and that he didn’t care how or why, but he was afraid that if he moved Kingsley would stop looking at him like that. He saved William the trouble by kissing him instead, slow and soft and full of meaning. When Kingsley pulled away this time, William no more wanted to talk than he wanted to go into the wake.

Oh damn, the wake! They’d been in the car nearly twenty minutes. His mother must be wondering what was going on and with his luck she’d send someone to check on them. Kingsley’s fingers spread over William thigh. Fuck it, he’d deal with his mother later.

When they came up for air this time, William managed to actually speak. “Does this mean you still want me to come to your manor this summer?” Kingsley hand moved to William’s crotch and he moaned pitifully. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Kingsley chuckled lightly into his ear, “If you behave.”

With a promise like that he didn’t think behaving was going to be an issue. Kingsley sighed into the side of his neck and William closed his eyes contentedly. “What are you thinking, Renauld?”

“I’m thinking,” he bit William’s neck softly, “that I’m going to marry your mother.”

William’s eyes opened in shocked and he pulled away so that he could see Kingsley’s face. He wasn’t smiling, or laughing, he was being perfectly serious. “My mother? Aren’t you going to continue seeing me?”

Kingsley smiled then, in the sort of way that told William he was thinking something incredibly wicked. “I’m going to marry your mother because she intends to let it be known whose child you really are and it would only be proper. I’m going to bugger you because I enjoy it.”

His mind locked up as Kingsley slid a hand under his waist band and ran long fingers through the dark hair and over his cock. “I... But, won’t you have to sleep with her? I mean, your being married and all.”

“Adriana knows that I’m gay and that I have no intentions of sleeping with her. If she found that to be a problem, then she never would have suggested it. However, I get the feeling that after having been married to a gay man for over eighteen years she has acclimated herself to the situation.”

“Meaning?”

“She has her own lovers, just as your father had his, and I’ll have mine.” He emphasized the point by stroking William more firmly.

“Hmmm.” William was having trouble thinking at all, let alone clearly. “Why doesn’t she marry one of them, then?”

“Society, William, it all comes down to society.”

“That’s really messed up.”

“Oh, Love,” He couldn’t help but moan at the pet name, “things were messed up long before you came along.”

William abandoned talking and let his orgasm wash over him and onto Kingsley’s hand. They took another few minutes to catch their breath and clean up before heading into the wake, pretending as though they’d done nothing more than talk.

Maybe he was right. Things had been fairly well cocked up from the beginning, but then that didn’t matter. Just like a flat full of mourners waiting to give him their best wishes didn’t matter, or biological relationships didn’t matter. He could marry William’s mother, he could stow William away in his manor, he could hide their relationship from the entirety of England and the world and it didn’t matter as long as he looked at William that way and touched him and kissed him and said he loved him.

William caught Kingsley eye across the room and held back the broad grin that threatened to break across his face. Nothing else mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While I don’t necessarily think it warrants it, per say, should you decide to send hate mail, please do so in a British accent befitting the nature of the story.
> 
> In all seriousness, thank you to those who actually took the time to read this and an even bigger thank you to anyone who left ‘kudos.’ It’s always nerve-wrecking to post original work and knowing it was appreciated means absolutely everything. 
> 
> To anyone who has read my Harry Potter work, you may have guessed this is an original adaptation of Twisted Little Happy - the title being similar because of that. While it can stand alone, I do have two more in the works. A prequel going much more into depth about who David was and how everything happened between the three of them; and a sequel where William will dig more thoroughly into his family’s past, uncovering even more buried lies, while Renauld and him attempt to keep their relationship a secret from Adrianna and help her plan the wedding.


End file.
